LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



UNITED STATES OF .AMERICA. 



THE 

DOCTRINE AND FUNCTION 



OF 



REVELATION, 



Its Relation to the Doctrines of 
Physical Science. 



\J BY 

JOSHUA H. HARRISON, B.A., 

Principal McTyeire Institute. 




PRINTSBl JOR THE^ gTHOR. 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. 
J. D. Babbee, Agent, Nashville, Tenn. 



.W3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, 

By Joshua H. Harrison, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Tfru I 




V) 



PKEFACE. 



This work is not the outgrowth of a contemptuous 
disregard of the Christian whose life has been developed 
under convictions herein controverted. It is not the 
offspring of a feeling that denominates fool whoever 
may not be able to agree with the author. But it has 
come into existence in conditions of tender regard for 
all who love the Lord Jesus and discover in the Bible 
the marks of divine revelation to man for his sake. 

Nothing more than an outline of the doctrine advo- 
cated has been attempted. It will be well that the 
reader be sure he understands the position taken before 
he decides upon antagonism or repudiation. Whatever 
truth it may contain, whatever may be its apparent at- 
titude toward the orthodox faith, the volume is the ex- 
pression of a profound desire to contribute what the 
author may to the correct understanding of the Bible 
in order to the fulfillment of its divine mission in the 
world. 

(3) 



CONTENTS. 

PART I. 
DOCTRINE AND FUNCTION OF RE VELA TION. 

Chapter I. page 

Preliminary 9 

Chapter II. 
The Claim of Scripture 16 

Chapter III. 
Revelation , 22 

Chapter IV. 
Truth, Revealed and Incidental, Discriminated 39 

Chapter V. 
Conclusion 49 

PART II. 

RELATION TO THE DOCTRINES OF PHYSICAL 
SCIENCE. 

Chapter I. 

God as Presented in the Bible — Surface View 57 

Chapter II. 

Relation of God to Nature 61 

(5) 



6 Contents. 

Chapter III. page 

Miracles 75 

Chapter IV. 
Evolution 85 

Chapter V. 
Soul and Instinct 98 

Chapter VI. 
Why All Forms Do Not Reach up to Man 107 

Chapter VII. 
Evolution Not Fatalism 114 

PART III. 
MAN IN RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE, 

Chapter I. 
The Doctrine of Right 121 

Chapter II. 
The Doctrine of Depravity 136 

Chapter III. 
Death - 154 

Chapter IV. 
General Conclusion 165 



PAETL 

DOCTBINE AND FUNCTION OF BE.VELATION. 

(7) 



T 



CHAPTEK I. 

PKELIMINAKY. 

HE conception one entertains of the pur- 
pose and function of revelation will con- 
trol his interpretation thereof. Hence the 
necessity for a proper understanding of the 
doctrine of revelation. The gravest troubles 
of theology have been the results of efforts to 
enforce particular views of revelation, which, 
being out of harmony with its spirit, antago- 
nized rather than conciliated the spirit of in- 
tellect. Conscious of the discrepancy, yet 
powerless to formulate the error, nothing re- 
mained but to perpetuate the antagonism. 

Intellect, ordained of God to follow the 
mechanical trend of nature to trustworthy re- 
sults, has gradually acquired vantage-grounds, 
which have been with great reluctance con- 
ceded. This gradual acknowledgment of the 
trustworthiness of its results has not been 

(9) 



10 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

without unfortunate effects. A demonstration 
of truthfulness in one particular does not war- 
rant equal truthfulness in all things, nor does 
it suggest infallibility. 

The conflict between belief in the doctrine 
of revelation and the doctrine of physical 
science extends only to the subjective rela- 
tions — to the creed forms. The conflict lies 
in the knowledge, not in the facts of revela- 
tion and physical science. Several individu- 
als may have conflicting knowledge of a given 
object. Things entirely accordant may become 
discordant when imperfectly known. Conflict 
between revelation and physical science inev- 
itably originates in imperfect knowledge. 

There has been a gradual recession from 
the doctrine of Biblical authority for scien- 
tific statements. So marked and imperious 
was the belief in the cyclopedic character of 
the Bible that every form of science and phi- 
losophy, in order to credible acceptance, must 
preface itself with corroborative texts of Script- 
ure. The mistake of such a position has been 
long seen, and the point has been gradually 



Preliminary. 11 

conceded. Older Christian authorities were 
very slow to acknowledge the mistake. 

Scientific men have urged that the Bible 
should not be considered in the light of a 
text of science or philosophy, but simply a 
book of moral or religious significance. I 
believe it is Mr. Huxley that claims only a 
religious mission for the Bible, without de- 
fining it. His purpose is to relieve science of 
the trammel of Biblical authority, as gener- 
ally interpreted; for the common Christian 
creed forbids the acceptance of science not in 
accord with the cosmogony of Genesis. 

Dr. Geikie, in his " Hours with the Bible," 
freely concedes the independence of science. 
He says : " It is of supreme importance, more- 
over, that we demand no more from Scripture 
than God intended it to yield. It was given 
to reveal him to us and to make known his 
laws and will for our spiritual guidance, but 
not to teach us lessons in natural science. 
To expect them is to anticipate disappoint- 
ment." And again: " It is not the object of 
Scripture, moreover, to reveal what we may our- 



12 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

selves discover," etc. These passages may- 
be considered fairly representative of the 
more modern view of the Bible in relation to 
science. 

There are many, holding firmly to the in- 
spiration of the Bible, that go a little farther 
in their liberalism. 

We cannot, in the light of investigations 
made in Bible research, condemn as infidel 
and atheistic all divergence from the ancient 
faith, and all efforts to relieve the Bible of 
unfortunate conflicts, and science of unneces- 
sary trammels. 

Dr. Summers, in his "Systematic Theolo- 
gy," Yol. I., in the discussion of the Fifth 
Article, under the "Pertinency of the Holy 
Scriptures," says: "The sacred writings are 
pertinent; their authors undertake to treat on 
the subject of salvation, and what they write 
is relevant to their theme. In a certain sense, 
indeed, the Bible is cyclopedic in its charac- 
ter." Again: "But upon closer examination 
it will be found that the history of salvation 
could not be given without giving, at least in 



Preliminary. 13 

epitome, a history of the race for whom salva- 
tion is provided. There must be an account 
of its origin and primeval character, its fall, 
and the preliminaries of its redemption. The 
character of man is best seen in the concrete; 
hence the histories and biographies of the 
Bible. In them human nature is developed 
in all its characteristics. Human nature, with 
all its varieties, is essentially the same in every 
age and clime." 

While the students of Scripture make pro- 
gressive movements in denning the function 
of Scripture, the popular faith lags tardily be- 
hind, and not unf requently suspects treachery 
in the learned, or an imperceptible growth 
into infidelity under honest purposes. Faith, 
in connection with intellectual inactivity, will 
gradually become superstitious and intoler- 
ant. 

Dr. Lindsay, of the Free Church College, 
Glasgow, in his article on "Inspiration " in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Revelation 
is the objective approach of God to man, God 
entering human life and. Jiistory for man's 



14 Doctrine and Function of 'Revelation. 

salvation; Scripture is the record of this rev- 
elation, and inspiration provides that the rec- 
ord is complete and trustworthy." 

Richard Watson, in treating of the Bible, 
says: "As it contains an authentic and con- 
nected history of the divine dispensation with 
regard to mankind, ... as its chief subject 
is religion, and as the doctrines it teaches and 
the duties it inculcates pertain to the conduct 
of men as rational, moral, and accountable be- 
ings, and conduce by a divine constitution 
and promise to their present and future hap- 
piness, the Bible deserves to be held in the 
highest estimation," etc. 

I now proceed to discuss the subject I have 
undertaken not in the spirit of defiance to the 
popula faith, or in indifference or ignorance 
of the a v ritude of many Christian standards 
toward a large liberality of faith in the Script- 
ures, T~ xi in the spirit of doing what I may in 
the way of assisting the long line of spiritual- 
ly minded men who have striven in honesty 
of purpose to enforce the claims of Scripture 
on the conscience of the world. 



Preliminary. 15 

I have for several years been convinced 
that many well-meant lives have inadvert- 
ently trammeled rather than facilitated the 
course of Scripture among men by insisting 
upon the essential cyclopedic character of 
Scripture, and that all science and philosophy 
must be tried at the tribunal of its scientific 
deliverances. 

McKenzie, Term., 1889. 



CHAPTEK II. 

THE CLAIM OF SCKIPTUEE. 

DOES the Bible claim any statement of 
the doctrines of physical science? 
This question is of vital importance, be- 
cause it is pivotal. The history of theology 
presents a dogmatic and persistent claim of 
authoritative statement of universal doctrines. 
There has been a wonderful uniformity of be- 
lief in the authority of Scripture statements 
over all lines of thought. The most conspic- 
uous creed of Biblical authority constructs 
out of the doctrines of revelation authorita- 
tive data for universal thought. The concep- 
tion of revelation which becomes regulative 
of such a creed is that God designed to fur- 
nish in the form of a body of revealed truth 
a practical solution for every thing that was 
to meet man; that Scripture was to be to 

man a thesaurus in which he was to find what- 
(16) 



The Claim of Scripture. 17 

eyer the exigencies of his career might de- 
mand. So that by reference to Scripture man 
should solve all that nature had left mysteri- 
ous or difficult. Not only was Scripture re- 
garded as an absolute^ authoritative deliver- 
ance in all matters of philosophy and science, 
but it likewise contained illustrative examples 
of all legitimate literature — love, romance, his- 
tory, essay, fable, or parable. Every line of 
legitimate thought had its authoritative mod- 
el given under the hand of God. So absolute 
was the influence of such a creed that every 
thing that did not get its postulate from 
Scripture was condemned as vicious and hos- 
tile to the interests of man. 

It was entirely natural that men should 
exaggerate the disposition to render divine as- 
sistance, when they regarded themselves the 
objects of special dealings, and believed them- 
selves the objects of a special love. There 
can be no doubt that this view of man is, in 
part at least, true. He was the object of spe- 
cial love and special dealing. It was this 
knowledge that led man to exaggerate the 
2 



18 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

work of God for him in revelation. Feeling 
himself an object of special concern, he readi- 
ly made the passage to a supplementary reve- 
lation, in every way filling tip what was left 
vacant, enlightening what was left dark. Man 
naturally locates and interprets the necessities 
of which he becomes conscious, and defines 
the character and manner of assistance con- 
sidered necessary. So when he became the 
depositary of a divine revelation he at once 
defined the character and function of such 
revelation, and construed all subsequent rev- 
elations in the light of his own conceptions. 
By nature first introduced into a physical 
world, which appealed to his intellect through 
processes as physical and inevitable as gravi- 
ty, he became conversant with the physical 
and recognized its magnitude and began to 
construe its significance, while the signifi- 
cance of the moral was less fully apprehend- 
ed, and so regarded with less concern. Not- 
withstanding the experience of the great 
moral disaster precipitated by man's more 
careful regard for the physical than the mor- 



The Claim of Scripture. 19 

al, which tended to give greater emphasis to 
the moral and to raise it to its proper signifi- 
cance in the estimation of man, he found 
himself nnder the law of the same relation to 
the physical world that naturally tended to 
the exaggeration of the physical. Under the 
influence of conflicting forces of the moral 
and the physical, man naturally felt that the 
revelation that belonged only to the moral was 
equally applicable to the physical. Regard- 
ing the physical of more immediate and tan- 
gible interest, he naturally enough sees a 
physical side to all revelation, and applies it 
to the solution of difficulties observed in the 
physical world, and regards such application 
as the specific purpose of God in its deliver- 
ance. 

I should use as a basic principle in the so- 
lution of the problem of the current faith in 
revelation the pronounced tendency in man 
to the physical and secular sides of life and 
to subordinate the moral side. The applica- 
tion of great principles of life, involved in the 
instruction of revelation or given in other 



20 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

ways, to the solution of the physical world 
rather than the enlightenment of conscience, 
is in line with the nature of man. The his- 
tory of revelation, from its conception to its 
conclusion, illustrates the grave difficulty of 
introducing into the thought of man a purely 
moral principle, a truth without physical or 
secular application. This subjection of man 
to the law of physical and secular life greatly 
intensified the difficulty of salvation, because 
it created a tendency to the secular side of life 
that augmented the difficulty of high moral 
and spiritual conceptions. It was this that 
most embarrassed the system of graduated 
revelation made to the Jews concerning Je- 
sus and salvation. 

The view of man as subjected to the law 
of physical and secular life that creates an 
antagonism to his spiritual interests suggests 
a greater necessity for a purely moral and 
spiritual revelation than for any deliverance 
of God concerning the physical world. If 
man's spiritual nature is right, his science 
will accord with it. Sin introduced into the 



The Claim of Scripture, 21 

intellectual relationships of man no such dis- 
turbance as in the moral; created no such 
necessities. I feel entirely safe in asserting 
that the fundamental intellectual relations, as 
well as the intellectual nature, remained un- 
disturbed by sin. The region of profoundest 
disturbance was in the spiritual relations and 
nature. It is therefore more reasonable to 
suppose that God should be concerned for the 
spiritual attitude of man, and that any work 
of revelation should be immediately connected 
with man's spiritual nature rather than the 
problems of the universe; for such problems 
are capable of solution by man alone when he 
is adjusted in his proper spiritual relations, 
and need no subsidiary revelation farther than 
the demands of man's spiritual necessities. 

I therefore conclude that Scripture makes 
no claims of authoritative statements of scien- 
tific formulas, but claims only an authorita- 
tive and specific revelation of spiritual truth 
made to man in order to the restoration of his 
disrupted spiritual nature. 



CHAPTER lit 

REVELATION. 

A QUESTION of much gravity is sug- 
gested by the very palpable impression 
made by the Bible upon the casual reader. 
The primary impression made by the reading 
of Scripture without special study is that it 
reveals God as the creator and preserver of 
the physical world, as well as of man. Such 
a reading also makes the impression that God 
is immediately connected with the phenome- 
na of the natural world. He is represented 
as directly causing the sun to shine, the veg- 
etable world to grow. The animal world is 
represented as immediately dependent upon 
him. He controls the clouds, and sends the 
rain and the frost. He holds the seas in the 
hollow of his hand. The announcement that 
God is the creator is its initial statement. 

The numerous expressions of affectionate 
(22) 



Revelation* 23 

regard, and the representations of God as 
disposing nature by personal influence and 
supervision, disclose a well defined anthro- 
pomorphism of possibly an intenser form 
than the conceptions of God under the in- 
fluence of New Testament instruction would 
warrant. 

It is patent to all that the writers of the 
Bcriptures regarded God under the influence 
of an intense anthropomorphism, and reflect- 
ed such as the popular conception of him. 
The Hebrew conception of God was a person- 
al God who controlled the world and did much 
for man ; a powerful personal being, who made 
war for his chosen people, who blessed and 
chastised according to their works. 

The Jew certainly regarded God as a being 
whom he could approach as a personal friend, 
who loved him and was concerned for him as 
a friend, who was angry at his wrong-doing 
and well pleased with his righteousness. 

Is not this primary impression, uniformly 
made upon the casual reader of Scripture, the 
understanding designed of God in its deliver- 



24 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

ance? It is declared that certain matters of 
Scripture authority are so simple that "a 
wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err 
therein." It is a matter of some consequence 
whether the surface view of Scripture repre- 
sents the purpose of God in revelation. 

I have already intimated that the design of 
revelation was to supplement the spiritual 
forces of man in order to salvation. Inas- 
much as the salvation of man involved truths 
that did not form any constituent or integral 
part of the universe in relation to man as 
originally created, at least were not elements 
of the universe in the form in which they ex- 
ist in relation to soteriology, some special 
divine movement was demanded. Revelation 
comprises only such movement. It is neither 
logically nor ontologically connected with 
physical science. It has only an incidental 
logical connection with physical science. 

Man is the agency of the formulation of 
the truths of revelation. In his expression 
of such truth man was subjected to all the 
influences cf life. 



Revelation. 25 

The truth to be revealed had no natural or 
original conditions within the compass of hu- 
man thought. Such truth was not an inte- 
gral element of the universe, either in its 
physical or moral composition, It was not 
one of the original structural elements of the 
universe. While redemption violated none of 
the structural principles of the universe, it 
was not accomplished by the simple natural 
force of such principles, but by a special di- 
vine movement, involving the introduction 
into the consciousness of man of truths that 
were not integral or constituent in the moral 
universe. The method of such introduction 
was wholly divine, but involved necessarily 
the agency of man. The human element con- 
stitutes a variable quantity, and becomes the 
condition necessitating the graduation of rev- 
elation. Truth without relation or condi- 
tion within the compass of human thought 
cannot be known or become factitive* in 

* Factitive is used as an adjective from factor, and 
signifies a relation in which the thing of which it is 
predicated becomes to any extent able to affect general 



£6 Poetritie and Function of ihvetaiiott. 

moral character unless subjected to sucli con- 
dition or relation. The subjection of such 
truth to the conditions and relations of truth 
attainable by man, therefore making it a pos~ 
sible knowledge, was the primary movement 
involved in revelation. The truth was not 
thrust into the mind in violation of the laws 
of knowledge, but must become knowledge by 
a process natural to man; so that revelation 
in the form of knowledge is a human product 
contingent upon the laws and principles of 
human intellection. In order that it may be- 
come potent in the life of man, it must thus 
become human. Original objective truth ex- 
erts a dynamic influence upon man only as it 
becomes a subjective factitive element inte- 

results as one of the integral elements. The factitive 
element of moral character is an element of knowledge 
that affects the moral character developed under such 
condition of intelligence. Man as a factitive element of 
nature, or in factitive relations to nature, signifies such 
relations as make man's influence and life capable of 
and actually affecting the general character of the world 
—moral, intellectual, and physical. 



keDetatioiU %1 

gral m man. This subjectization* of truth 
in man relates it to him as a tangible force. 
The extent and correctness of the knowledge 
is the measure of the effect Truth, a thing 
apart from man, through the laws and prin- 
ciples of intellection becomes an integral ele- 
ment in him. Such a process I shall call hom* 
inism. The act of truth passing by the laws 
of intellection into subjective integral forms 
I shall call hominization* The final results of 
hominization are the truths of revelation 
made human in form— capable of affecting 

* Subjectization is formed from subjective, and signi- 
fies an act of placing in subjective relations. Here it 
signifies the act of God in placing the truth revealed in 
purely subjective relations to man, making a knowledge 
of it possible without subjecting such truth to any nat- 
ural or objective relations other than the purely subject- 
ive one which involves the objective. The relation of 
the truth to be revealed could not be physical, or in- 
volve material conditions, as all other truth does — could 
not be placed in material relations, in order to become 
objects of possible knowledge. Hence the process of 
conditioning such truth as object of knowledge involved 
only subjective relations. 



28 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

human experience and character. Such truth 
becomes by such process appurtenant to hu- 
man life and thought. The truth is modified 
and adjusted to the human elements of exist- 
ence, in order to a perfect objective soteriol- 
°gy> by being subjected to the law of thought 
and human experience for its formulation. 
It loses none of its spiritual force, but is so 
shaped and conditioned that it becomes capa- 
ble of exerting the fullness of its influence 
upon human life. 

You will therefore understand me when I 
say revelation is the hominization of truth, 
subjected by special divine movement, for 
specific spiritual purposes, to the conditions of 
hominism. Inasmuch as the truths of reve- 
lation were not originally subjected to the law 
of intellection in man, there must be an initial 
subjectizt.tion of such truth as the condition 
of hominization. 

Eevelation, however, differs from ordinary 
intellection in one important particular. The 
hominization of revelation was guarded with 
care, and the human mind was subjected to 



Revelation. 29 

all the divine influence compatible with, its 
nature and liberty. Its liberty may have been 
transcended in the initial subjectization of the 
truth to be hominized, inasmuch as such truth 
had no natural relation to human thought. 
This divine influence that assists the mind in 
the hominization of truth is inspiration. We 
should carefully discriminate revelation and 
inspiration. Inspiration is divine assistance 
in the apprehension of truth either already 
hominized, or in the original hominization of 
revealed truth. Revelation is the subjection 
to the laws of hominism of truth not in facti- 
tive relations in the universe previous to its 
introduction in revelation; but its factitive, 
integral presence in the moral world was made 
necessary by the plan of redemption. Reve- 
lation is concerned only about the great spir- 
itual truths involved in man's spiritual resto- 
ration. Inspiration finds application to truths 
subjected to the laws of ordinary intellection. 
Much of the Bible is truth formulated with- 
out any special divine assistance or guidance. 
Genesis is not a revelation. Revelation is 



30 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

used in the specific sense of disclosing by 
special divine movement things that were not 
naturally objects of knowledge and conld not 
be known otherwise. God, creation, sin need- 
ed no revelation. God and creation were 
facts so related to man that they became the 
inevitable objects of a legitimate speculation. 
A cosmogony with the God worshiped the 
principal factor was as inevitable as specula- 
tion. In the original constitution and rela- 
tionships of mind there was no place for rev- 
elation. The progressive discovery of the 
truth in nature, and its relations to the God 
of man's conscience, is matter of sound intel- 
lection. Also the revelation of the character 
of God was a process purtenant to the orig- 
inal correlation of mind and God. Sin was 
a phenomenon of man's experience. Jesus 
Christ as the Saviour of man, and the doc- 
trines immediately involved, and the grad- 
ual discovery of the character of God in 
Christ constitute the body of doctrine called 
revelation. The Bible is simply the inspired 
record of the methods and processes of the 



Bevelation. 31 

graduated revelation to man of this body of 
spiritual doctrine. All else is left as orig- 
inally subjected in the creation to the laws 
of observation, analysis, and syuthesis. The 
conclusions reached are to be regulated by 
man's spiritual relations and life. 

There is no warrant for the revelation of 
the cosmogony of Moses. The materials ex- 
isted before Moses wrote. He simply com- 
piled a written, and therefore a permanent, 
record of the highest advances made in the 
direction of constructing a physical science. 
It is hardly to be questioned that Moses select- 
ed from numerous extant traditions, which 
bear none of the marks of revelation. 

The people who constructed those traditions 
were those subjected to the special line of di- 
vine influence connected with the methods of 
revelation. Inevitably speculative concern- 
ing the physical world, they naturally enough 
applied the matter of the revelations made to 
them to their physical speculations. Having 
knowledge of God in the special dealings of 
revelation, they naturally transferred the ar- 



32 Doctrine and Function of Revela- 



tion. 



bitrary dealings of God with the truths of 
revelation to his dealing with nature. The 
important truth involved in the traditions se- 
lected by Moses for permanent record was 
the conception of God as creator — the vi- 
tal connection of God with the origin of the 
universe. The manner of creation, as de- 
scribed in the cosmogony, is purely incidental 
and without vital significance. It is a correct 
deliverance of God as creator and as immedi- 
ately concerned with the organization of the 
universe. It illustrates the thorough homin- 
ization of that truth which permeated the 
whole life of the people and was a potent 
force in them. But in this hominization the 
truth of revelation was so interwoven with the 
logical forms consequent upon intellection 
that its integrity was lost sight of, and its dis- 
integration followed the definite construction 
of physical speculations. The truth present- 
ed in revelation was a spiritual one, but its 
hominization converted it into a scientific 
postulate. It does not claim authority as a 
scientific deliverance, but only in its moral 



Revelation. 33 

phase — only in so far as it asserts a spiritual 
truth in relation to soteriology. Its initial 
deliverance, "The seed of the woman shall 
bruise the serpent's head," marks the line of 
its authoritative deliverances. The form of 
this statement must be regarded as the result 
of intellection, and illustrates the degree of 
the apprehension of the great truth revealed. 
It represents only the human side of the Sav- 
iour — "the seed of the woman." We can 
scarcely believe that those who originally 
formulated this truth of revelation perceived 
the real significance of the doctrine. They 
scarcely reached the truth of the incarnation 
of the Son of God prefigured in this state- 
ment. It reaches no higher in its literal doc- 
trinal value than a victory of humanity over 
the serpent, the agent of the temptation as 
represented in the general account of Genesis. 
This account is not to be taken as a revela- 
tion, but rather as the results of speculative 
efforts of mind suggested by the initial reve- 
lation, involving the efforts of mind to con- 
struct definite formularies of the truth re- 
3 



34 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

vealed in relation to all other objects of 
knowledge. The forms the truths of revela- 
tion assumed after becoming knowledge are 
incidental, and possess no doctrinal value. 
They indicate the partial knowledge of the 
truth revealed, and constitute a body of evi- 
dence for a progressive revelation, which is 
the inevitable result of the nature of mind 
and the truths to be revealed, that cannot be 
disregarded. This phraseology is the human 
form, an expression that indicates the degree 
of apprehension of the truth of revelation — 
redemption. 

It is well, just here, to remark that revela- 
tion was projected upon the basis of a world- 
object. It was not an endeavor to aggrandize 
a particular people, but contemplated the spir- 
itual restoration of humanity. The immedi- 
ate recipients thereof could not, therefore, re- 
ceive the fullness of its value. They were af- 
fected proportionally to their insight into its 
spirituality. 

Such a revelation naturally is expressed in 
figures and forms that reach beyond the vari- 



Beveled ion. 35 

ableness of language, and become a perma- 
nent heritage to the world, so that it may be 
studied in its entirety after its conclusion. 
The revelation made to the Jew was not a 
heritage to him, but to the world, and he was 
made its custodian. Naturally he gave its for- 
mulation the complexion of his religious and 
national character. Its expression and form 
are Jewish, its doctrinal value and character 
universal. Jesus oftentimes bitterly com- 
plained of the Jew's failure to recognize the 
spiritual character of the revelation given him, 
and the specific function of his national or- 
ganization. Indeed, the Old Testament con- 
tains complaints of a similar character. 

It is a law of mind to project spiritual con- 
ceptions into all explanations of the physical 
world. That creation is no matter of revela- 
tion is sufficiently shown by the universal ref- 
erence of the building of the earth and all its 
phenomena to some deity. Atheism has never 
originated or existed except as a reaction from 
some popular cosmogony whose god was log- 
ically incompetent to do the work assigned 



36 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

him. The primary law of thought, as exhib- 
ited in the philosophy of the world, connects 
the idea of God with the universe, and leads 
to the construction of a philosophy of physic- 
al existence. The idea of God affected by the 
knowledge of God in revelation is made the 
principal logical agent in the solution of the 
problem of physical existence. Under this 
law every additional revelation is construed 
into matter of scientific character. Thus the 
mind was gradually led to divorce revelation 
from its proper ends; so that when Jesus 
Christ came into the world, the fulfillment of 
prophecy, to accomplish the final elaboration 
of revelation in himself and his apostles, those 
who had been made the recipients and custo- 
dians of all the successive steps of revelation 
were unable to recognize the continuity of 
truth revealed. But the body of truth re- 
vealed was given to the world, made by the 
process of revelation, truth existent in the 
world of thought, and subject to the laws of log- 
ic, and dependent upon the conditions of accu- 
rate knowledge for its saving effects upon man. 



Revelation. 37 

Included in the body of revealed truth is 
much adventitious matter interpolated by the 
mind of man in the process of becoming con- 
ditioned in thought. No intelligent reader of 
the Bible can deny the difficulty of reaching 
the truth. Certain general propositions con- 
tain truths patent to all. Certain facts are 
placed beyond question to all who accept rev- 
elation at all; but their doctrinal value and 
specific character are left to the integrity of 
logic. It is oftentimes difficult to discrimi- 
nate the facts of revelation and the forms of 
thought creating their relations as objects of 
analysis. 

Genesis was constructed by its author as an 
introduction to the written record he was di- 
vinely directed to make of the system of truth 
so far revealed, and to be completed in future 
by successive revelations. It naturally includ- 
ed the accumulated speculations upon the 
questions of physical science, and only illus- 
trates such speculations. These traditional 
forms were thus incorporated in the perma- 
nent record of revealed truth only because the 



38 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

revelations hitherto made were permanently 
interwoven in the forms of cosmical philoso- 
phy prevalent among the people to whom the 
revelations were made. The history of Chris- 
tianity illustrates the dependence of its doc- 
trinal forms, and therefore its dynamic value, 
upon the laws of intellection. The history 
of revelation, the Bible, illustrates the de- 
pendence of the truth revealed upon the laws 
of hominism. Hence the truth of revelation 
in Genesis is as much interwoven with the 
cosmical philosophy as the religious and na- 
tional character of its recipients. Its author- 
ity is none the less positive because thus in- 
volved. Such involution was inevitable. 



CHAPTEK IY. 

TRUTH, REVEALED AND INCIDENTAL, DISCRIM- 
INATED. 

THE question that will most perplex de- 
vout Christians is how to separate the 
authoritative statements of Scripture from its 
incidental, secular features. In the first place, 
the popular belief that the Bible is an author- 
itative deliverance in all matters whatsoever 
is unfortunate. It is in part the product of 
the law already referred to, that spiritual con- 
victions are inevitably projected into all phys- 
ical speculations. The system of special divine 
dealings to which the Jew was subjected for 
spiritual purposes connected with revelation 
made him particularly sensitive to this law. 
Hence the incidental features of Scripture. 

In the second place, the principles that reg- 
ulate the development of character regulated 

the development of revelation. Spiritual in- 

(39) 



40 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

fluences are always superable. The long, tort- 
uous course of introducing revelation sug- 
gests the dependence of God upon the laws of 
intellection. Else why did he not immediate- 
ly and infallibly discover to man the truth al- 
ready formulated, and favor the first man 
with the fullness of so gracious a revelation ? 
Chosen characters, represented in Scripture 
as principal factors in the method of revela- 
tion, were not withheld by divine agency from 
abominable sins. God abided the slow and 
precarious movements of the human soul. 
The spiritual influences under the dispensa- 
tion of the Comforter operate no insuperable 
dynamism upon the soul of man. His char- 
acter is perfect in proportion to the inspira- 
tion of his own agency. The fact that God 
abides the agency of man in the all-important 
work of personal salvation, the concrete end 
for which revelation was made, furnishes a 
warrant for the belief in a similar relation of 
God in the initial work of salvation. We 
cannot discredit the possibilities of doctrinal 
Christianity by its negative results in practi- 



Truth, Revealed and Incidental 41 

cal life. Nor can we discredit revelation by 
the incidental features of hominization. The 
character of God is indirectly revealed in 
many of the incidental features of Scripture. 
This is, no doubt, an important element in 
the explanation sought. It at least makes 
manifest God's absolute adherence to nature 
in all his dealings with man. It puts beyond 
question the adjustment of redemption to the 
laws of human agency, including all things 
concerned. 

A correct conception of the function of rev- 
elation is requisite for a satisfactory explana- 
tion. We should discard the idea that the 
first impression, made upon casual reading, is 
the correct one. It must be remembered that 
the Bible is the inspired record of the method 
and work of introducing into human thought 
a body of truth that was not originally corre- 
lated to the mind of man; a work of grave 
difficulties, and involving truth of such a char- 
acter as to make its apprehension particularly 
difficult ; and in so far as it became a factitive * 

* Factitive — I appropriate this word to philosophic 



42 Doctrine and Function of Revelation, 

element in knowledge it was subject to the 
laws of intellection, and therefore, as necessa- 
rily imperfect knowledge of such truth, was 
particularly liable to more or less disintegra- 
tion in the effort of mind to apply it to the 
solution of the problems of physical specula- 
tions. The law of mind to connect God with 
nature, and to make its knowledge of God the 
basis of definition, probably explains with suf * 
ficient fullness the frequent statement of sci^- 
entific doctrine. It is necessary to understand 
that revelation is concerned about spiritual 
truth, not scientific formularies> or models of 
literature. These belong necessarily to the 
process of reducing the truth designed to be 
revealed to the conditions of knowledge, and 
making it a permanent element in the life of 

uses. It is used only in grammar thus far. I make 
frequent use of it in the discussion of subjects farther on. 
It is important to get a correct idea of the word. I use 
it as an adjective from factor. It therefore signifies any 
thing in such relations as to affect the general results 
with which it may be connected — a force, an element 
working together with other elements in producing cer- 
tain results. 



Truth, Revealed and Incidental. 43 

man. Every "thus saith the Lord" does not 
preface a revelation, bnt rather a kind of per- 
sonal instruction in the way of life. 

The dealings of God recorded in the Old 
Testament should not be regarded as repre- 
sentative of universal dealings, but as specif- 
ically belonging to his purpose to save the 
world, and appurtenant only to his efforts in 
working out doctrinal redemption. The dis- 
pensation of the Spirit is the complement of 
that system of providential dealing commenc- 
ing with Adam and terminating with the life 
of the apostles. 

Just as the instance of God's causing the 
sun to stand still cannot be construed into a 
demonstration of a geocentric astronomy, so 
all the apparent formularies of physical sci- 
ence constitute no authoritative deliverance 
from God concerning matters originally ap- 
purtenant to man's career. Their value con- 
sists in the inspired sanction of the doctrinal 
integrity of the application of the intuition of 
God in the speculations of physical science. 

A correct met-hod of scientific procedure is 



44 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

to acknowledge the validity of the intuition or 
idea of God, and to secure as correct a logical 
structure of it as possible. The essence of 
atheism is the denial of such validity. The- 
ology would relieve itself of the burden of 
reconciliation with science, or rejection, by ac- 
cepting the view of revelation herein advocat- 
ed. As long as science credits the intuitions 
of mind, and attributes validity to its move- 
ments in acknowledging the existence of God, 
and its effort to construct a reasonable idea of 
him, it is in harmony with Scripture and hon- 
ors God. As long as science acknowledges 
God, and accepts redemption as the fact of 
revelation, not of nature, it is credible and 
trustworthy. 

The Bible has created no obligation to the 
cosmogony of Genesis. It has created obliga- 
tions to the body of doctrine revealed. This 
body of revealed truth, doctrinal redemption, 
is the "talents" or "pounds" distributed to 
the " servants " for use until the return of the 
master, thereby creating the obligations to 
"occupy" till the return. The man who hid 



Truth, Revealed and Incidental. 45 

his lord's money denied the obligation created 
by the distribution of the money, and was 
justly punished. The taking away of the 
"talent" or "pound" from him, and giving it 
to the man who had "occupied" his money 
and gained other "talents" or "pounds," pre- 
figures the final withdrawal of the body of 
doctrine revealed from its relations as factitive 
truth in human consciousness, so far as the 
wicked are concerned ; that only the righteous 
— those who acknowledge the obligation cre- 
ated by revelation— will be in permanent pos- 
session of the truth, and will be the recipients 
of all its benefits, both personal and physical. 
Simple matter of history is secular, unless 
that history involves matter independent of 
cosmical nature, yet manifested through nat- 
ural channels. We can credit the secular his- 
tory of the Jews recorded in the Bible as mat- 
ter of inspiration, the phenomena of such 
history being purely natural, involving, how- 
ever, more than its natural features. It is 
the concrete history of the development of 
revelation. It is the duty of the world to find 



46 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

the movements of God impressed upon the 
life of a people — the concrete impression of 
the truth of God, and the concrete history of 
its introduction into the world. Such a phe- 
nomemon as the political, social, and religious 
life of a people constitutes the physical basis 
of revelation, and makes it a permanent ele- 
ment in the civil and religious civilization of 
the world. God certainly assumed the power 
of mind to do the work of separation in pro- 
jecting revelation upon such a basis. 

We could not expect a revelation without 
difficulties made upon such a basis. Nor 
could we expect any other basis. Such a 
basis renders revelation capable of being stud- 
ied as a whole, and furnishes better opportu- 
nity for investigating the system than was af- 
forded to the people to whom it was originally 
given. We can see it as a whole; they, only 
in part, as it was successively made. We can 
better compute its purpose and function, hav- 
ing the entire system, than those having only 
parts. We are better able to discriminate the 
secular and spiritual elements of the Bible 



Truth, Revealed and Incidental. 47 

than those living in the ages of its develop- 
ment. We could scarcely be credited with no 
more advance in the separation of the spirit- 
ual elements, and therefore no better defini- 
tion of revelation than the people constituting 
its basis. With greater advantages for inter- 
pretation our responsibility is greater. 

It is all-important in the study of Scripture 
to understand the nature of its secular ele- 
ments and the circumstances of their pres- 
ence, and to keep in mind that revelation is a 
spiritual work for man, and furnishes the in- 
tellectual basis for the kingdom of God. It 
was the necessary antecedent of the kingdom 
of heaven, and its methods and history con- 
stitute a tangible introduction to that dispen- 
sation of spiritual power contingent upon hu- 
man volition for its manifestation in human 
life under which we now live. The present 
spiritual constitution of the world must be 
seen as the practical illustration of God's pur- 
pose in the inauguration of revelation, but its 
final formulation exists only in the shadows 
of prophecy and Biblical eschatology. We 



48 Doctrine and Function of Bevelation. 

can readily see that it contemplates some gen- 
eral re-adjnstmenfc. 

Prophecy must be regarded as the concom- 
itant of the method of procedure involving 
revelation. The prophecy of secular events is 
incidental to this method. 

This is not the place to discuss the princi- 
ples involved in prophecy. It is important to 
recognize this department of the Bible as sub- 
sidiary to the general purpose of God in reve- 
lation, notwithstanding it involves statements 
that reach beyond the kingdom of God. 



CHAPTER Y. 

CONCLUSION. 

OUR conclusion concerning the function 
of revelation is that "the Holy Script- 
ures contain all things necessary to salvation; 
so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor 
may be proved thereby, is not to be required 
of any man, that it should be believed as an 
article of faith, or be thought, requisite or nec- 
essary to salvation." Our Article states suc- 
cinctly the purely spiritual function of Script- 
ure, and properly interpreted it is never thrust 
in the way of legitimate science. Science is 
secular, Scripture spiritual. Our Article cre- 
ates no obligation of antagonism to science. 
Its spirit is to intensify the consciousness of 
obligation to scriptural revelation, a work of 
spiritual significance, without complication 
with the purely secular and incidental affairs 

of life, without any authoritative logical re* 
4 (49) 



50 Doctrine and Function of Bevelat-ion. 

lation to the affairs appurtenant to physical 
science. The Article reaches farther in its 
formulation of the spiritual function of Script- 
ure than the Church has practically illustrat- 
ed. It is not required of any man to adopt 
any system of science as an article of faith, 
nor is any system of science held by its most 
ardent advocates as necessary to salvation. 
Science, being purely human, an effort to ex- 
plain the physical constitution of the universe, 
as long as it is purely physical and does not 
enforce a negation of Scripture, is compatible 
with the Article, and therefore, as we accept 
the Article as a correct formulation of the doc- 
trine of the Scriptures, in accord with the 
Scriptures. It is the sin of the individual, 
not of his science, who yields to the mechan- 
ical influence involved in purely physical 
speculations, and grows into dogmatic athe- 
ism. It is the function of the Scriptures to 
furnish the rational basis for the quickening 
influence of the Spirit upon the soul in order 
to the regulation of the mechanical tendency 
necessarily involved in scientific activity. 



Conclusion. 51 

The individual is responsible for the correct 
spiritual attitude. The Scriptures furnish 
the doctrinal basis for a rational spirituali- 
ty whose influence is to regulate all physical 
speculations whatever. 

We also conclude that the cosmogony of 
Genesis is not to be enforced as an "article 
of faith" nor as "necessary or requisite to sal- 
vation." Its statement of creation by God is 
introductory to the statement of sin, and all 
this introductory to the statement of salvation 
by Jesus Christ. Its statement of the fact of 
sin must be accepted as correlated to its state- 
ments of redemption. The drapery of these 
initial truths of Genesis is not credible as mat- 
ter of revelation. This cosmogony is only the 
unavoidable incident of the rational basis of 
revelation. It has no divine warrant or au- 
thority either as matter of "faith" or science. 
It has historical authority as to its statement 
of the prevalent scientific thought of its age 
— interesting and valuable as a statement of 
scientific advancement made under the pecul- 
iar conditions of theocracy. 



52 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

It is no more an attempt to regulate the 
science of the world than the history of the 
Jew was intended as an authoritative state- 
ment of the civil history of the world. Its 
initial statement, " In the beginning God cre- 
ated the heaven and the earth," instead of be- 
ing a revelation, is simply the postulate of 
universal mind, a product of the combined in- 
tellectual and spiritual necessities of humani- 
ty. By an intellectual necessity we are forced 
across the boundary of physical evidence in 
search of physical continuity, and by a spirit- 
ual necessity we make the passage from the 
rational terminus of physical continuity to its 
genesis in divine potentiality. 

We conclude also that the Scriptures claim 
no authority over science further than that 
man maintain the integrity of the spiritual 
intuitions against the mechanical tendency of 
intellectual activity, and that he likewise main- 
tain the integrity of intellect against the tend- 
ency to superstition involved in his spiritual 
activity. Furthermore, the most imperious 
demand of the Scriptures is that its spiritual 



Conclusion, 53 

function be clearly recognized, that it be val- 
ued for what it proposes, a body of spiritual 
doctrine concreted in human thought and 
character, and made a permanent factor in the 
rational life of the world. 

When the universal Church shall recognize 
the great mission of the Bible and divorce it 
from its unfortunate antagonism to science, 
and when Christian people shall use it as the 
"sword of the Spirit" the world will begin to 
live more "by every word that proceedeth 
from the mouth of God" than "by bread 
alone." 



PAET II. 



Kelation to the Doctrines of Physical 

Science. 

(55) 



CHAPTEK I. 

GOD AS PRESENTED IN THE BIBLE— SURFACE 
VIEW. 

THE discussion of the scientific side of the 
question is of great interest and moment, 
for all men look with more or less suspicion 
upon the advancement of constructive philos- 
ophy when they attribute to the Scriptures a 
scientific authority. 

The writers of the Scripture record attrib- 
ute directly to God all the movements of nat- 
ure. It was God that created and God that 
moved in nature. They evidently had a defi- 
nite idea of God's relation to nature. That 
relation was a being who personally controlled 
and supervised all the workings of nature. 
He is represented as " reigning " in nature, and 
the figure is simple. As they knew a mon- 
arch to reign over his realm, so God reigned 

in nature. 

(57) 



58 Doctrine und Function of Revelation, 

We are not at liberty to say that every writ* 
er that spoke of the reign of God in nature 
had no other conception of the matter. The 
apostles of Jesus Christ* after three years' in* 
timate association with him, and private in- 
struction and observation, were ignorant of 
the nature of "the kingdom of God," the 
kingship of Christ, and the reign of right- 
eousness, Is it any more improbable that 
the men of an earlier age should mistake sim- 
ilar figures of speech used to convey another 
idea of power than that of civil monarchs? 
While God was revealing himself as the su- 
preme Buler they received the idea of ruler, 
but lost its epithet. So thoroughly were they 
imbued with the idea of tactual rule that they 
saw God, the supreme Buler, in tactual rela- 
tions to nature. 

When we consider the tendency of the ages 
during the formulation of revelation to the 
gross forms of anthropomorphic polytheism 
we find a reasonable explanation for the man- 
ifestations of God in nature. All polytheist- 
ic and anthropomorphic conceptions of God 



God as Presented in the Bible. 59 

place him in tactual relations to nature. It 
was the marked tendency of those ages to con- 
ceive of God only as competent to do the phys- 
ical work of nature as far as observed, and to 
locate him in nature. To lead the Jew, and 
through him the world, into the conception 
of God as "Spirit" rather than a dynamic el- 
ement of nature, and as a living being inde- 
pendent of nature, not in anywise located in 
nature, seems to be the purpose of the mani- 
festations of God in nature to the Jew and the 
early world. The whole of Jewish history 
finds its significance as the record of the meth- 
od of God in discovering himself as a great 
spiritual being working for the moral restora- 
tion of man and his final spiritual resurrec- 
tion. I do not believe that the Scriptures 
were ever intended to illustrate God in nature, 
but to gradually conduct man into the knowl- 
edge of God as a being without physical qual- 
ities and relations, whom he should worship 
under the sublime postulate, "God is a Spirit: 
and they that worship him must worship him 
in spirit and in truth." The Scriptures seem 



60 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

more concerned about the spiritual relations 
of God to man than any relations to nature; 
so much so that man, reaching after the rela- 
tions of God to nature and overlooking his re- 
lations to man, will fail of the great purpose 
of Scripture, whatever advancement he may 
make in the definition of the former. 



CHAPTEE IL 

RELATION OF GOD TO NATURE. 

UNDEE the law of soul that projects all 
spiritual conceptions into explanations 
of the physical world the Scriptures acquired 
the phraseology of physical science. The 
long association of these products of devout 
souls with God's word has developed a decid- 
ed tendency to attach unwarrantable value to 
them. Here we are compelled to step with 
gentle tread upon ground so sacred to many 
hearts. 

The relation of God to nature is the ques- 
tion about which universal philosophy is most 
concerned — theistic philosophy, to define and 
establish; atheistic, to construct a logical ne- 
gation; agnostic, to prove irrelevant to man. 

The doctrine of design illustrated in the 
structural development of nature, which de- 
fines a law of sequence and mechanical inter- 

(61) 



62 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

dependence of such character as to lead to the 
inference of a personal intelligence control- 
ling nature, readily developed the doctrine of 
divine immanence as the final solution of the 
problem of God's relation to nature and mir- 
acles. Mind had passed through a long and 
painful travail to delivery. This doctrine of 
divine immanence stands forth the accredited 
offspring of intellect and inspiration, and re- 
ceives the pious homage of the Christian world. 
It is not egotism or infidelity that emboldens 
a divergence, but a profound conviction of 
the logical impotence of the doctrine. 

The doctrine of design cannot be considered 
equally rational and valid in application to all 
the phenomena of nature. Its strength lies 
in its application to the fundamental forms of 
nature. The principle of induction would 
lead to confusion if the doctrine be applied 
without discrimination. There is much in 
nature that justifies the ancient Persian doc- 
trine of Auramazda and Ahriman — the perpet- 
ual conflict of two great principles, light and 
darkness, good and evil. 



Relation of God to Nature. 63 

The doctrine of immanence has had an un- 
disturbed reign over Christian thought since 
its triumph over the doctrine of divine re- 
moteness. It is the easiest solution of the 
difficult problem if it had logical competence. 
This doctrine conceives God as in nature, 
not identical with nature, the source of all the 
phenomena of nature. The scientific formu- 
lary of the doctrine is: " God's will is the work- 
ing force of nature." It proceeds upon the 
assumption that force is inconceivable other- 
wise than as the action of intelligent will. 
The acceptance of such a postulate leads in- 
evitably to the conclusion that the working 
force of nature is divine will. The force dis- 
played in nature is considered an exercise of 
will, and consequently involves intelligence. 
In the growing of the trees, in the thunder of 
the storm, in the twinkle of the heavens, in 
the rising and setting of the sun God is seen 
acting intelligently; in gravity and all the 
fixed laws of nature God is seen acting intel- 
ligently, but constantly. All such laws are 
fixed and invariable because he chooses to act 



64 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

so in carrying out the purpose of creation. 
Miracles are explained as " the unusual action 
of God," God acting apart from his fixed 
channels of natural movements for specific 
purposes. As it is God's will in nature, and 
God's will in miracles, God cannot contradict 
himself; hence the consistency of miracles 
with nature. Evolution is a natural phenom^ 
enon, and belongs to the same intelligent 
movement of will that all other phenomena 
do. If it be proved a law of organic nature, 
the Christian cannot refuse to accept it, be- 
cause its rejection would do violence to the 
doctrine of divine immanence. No doctrine 
of science can do violence to the doctrines of 
Scripture, for the same God moves in each. 

Such a doctrine of God and nature is beau- 
tiful for simplicity and its ready explanation 
of the gravest difficulties of Christian thought. 
This doctrine illustrates the same movement 
of soul illustrated in all mythologies, with one 
marked difference : it conceives divinity under 
conditions of personal unity, while mytholo- 
gies conceived divinity under conditions of 



Relation of God to Nature. 65 

personal plurality. The personality of my- 
thology was more intense and more closely 
allied to human consciousness, and was griev- 
ously irrational. The phenomena to be ex- 
plained by the presence o£ their respective 
gods are impossible results of such personal 
agents. The agents and their work cannot 
be logically combined. In proportion as the 
forces of nature are personalized they are re- 
moved from the phenomena attendant upon 
them. The logical chasm increases with the 
definition of personality. This law of thought 
utterly negatives all systems of mythology as 
explanations of nature. Herein lies the fatal 
defect of the doctrine of divine immanence. 
Theism demands a personal God. 

The doctrine of immanence demands that 
this God be the physical agent of nature. 
Here is an implacable antagonism. The per- 
sonal God of theism cannot logically do the 
work of the physical agent of nature. Some- 
times the advocates of immanence claim a 
physical action and a moral action of God. 

In nature is illustrated the physical, in the in- 
5 



66 Doctrine and Function of Beveled ion. 

fluence of the Spirit upon man is illustrated 
the moral. Such a view only combines in the 
divine personal agent the two essentially dif- 
ferent agents known to man — the physical in 
nature, the divine in connection with the soul. 
But these are radically incompatible. The 
integration of such elements into a divine per- 
sonality for purposes of scientific exposition 
can but exaggerate the difficulties. The work 
demanded by the doctrine of immanence of 
the God of theism destroys his personality. 
Mr. Spencer's doctrine of divinity, as a simple, 
ultimate unit of force, which is the "cause" 
of all things that exist, illustrates the principle 
of intellectual movement that disintegrates a 
personal God in the effort to connect such a 
God with nature as its physical agent. 

We cannot discover in physical forces the 
remotest resemblance to the character of in- 
telligent action of will. Crucible and retort 
and all manner of mechanical experimenta- 
tion lead infallibly to the negation of will. It 
is an incredible effort of faith that identifies 
the intelligence of will with the mechanics of 



Relation of God to Nature. 67 

physical forces. The doctrine of immanence 
identifies the forces of nature with the will of 
God. What better warrant have we for the 
doctrine of human intelligence as different 
from the divine ? 

As the principal factor in the physical sys- 
tem of nature God must be impersonal. As 
the center of the religious systems of the 
world he is personal, either unal or plural. 

Herbert Spencer, the chief exponent of syn- 
thetic philosophy, reduces God to an imper- 
sonal dynamic unit. Frederick Harrison, the 
exponent of positive philosophy in religion, 
insists upon definite personality as an essen- 
tial condition of worship. 

As a scientific formulary of the doctrine of 
immanence we must accept Spencer. As the 
religious formulary of this doctrine we must 
accept Harrison. Can these two extremes be 
integrated into a consistent philosophy of 
God and nature? Each destroys the other. 
So when we make a serious test of immanence 
it fails. It does not maintain its scientific 
and religious validity when simultaneously 



68 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

applied. We are compelled by the doctrine 
of immanence to see in the physical energies 
of nature an exercise of divine will. The 
fixed physical conditions of the energies of 
nature utterly negative the character of intel- 
ligent will projected into these forces. The 
law of continuity of thought and being like- 
wise negatives the proposition. If intelligent 
will be made an integral factor of a physical 
system that necessitates mechanical action, 
the characteristics of will are eliminated, and 
the only element of identity retained is the 
continuity of the dynamic unit. It is only an 
illustration of the impotence of thought that 
identifies this ultimate dynamic unit with the 
intelligence of will. The self-imposed condi- 
tions of absolute constancy observable in nat- 
ural forces cannot sufficiently relieve the 
mechanism of the physical universe, does not 
conserve the character of will so subjected. 
We can readily understand how an intelligent 
agent may adopt a given line of action and 
maintain absolute constancy within that line. 
But there is no adequate illustration in hu- 



Relation of God to Nature. 69 

man possibilities of the divine subjugation in- 
volved in the doctrine of immanence. Our 
escape from infidelity and atheism does not 
lie in this doctrine. It is the glory of this 
doctrine that it locates God in nature acting 
and moving according to its physical condi- 
tions for the accomplishment of his purpose 
in creation. It is not a pantheism, but con-^ 
ceives God as existent independently of nat- 
ure, and this God, whose being is not nature 
or natural, works in nature, is its dynamic 
agent. 

We grant without rational explanation the 
postulate of creation. We can readily accept, 
without violence to logic, the existence of a 
God of intelligent will, who created nature, 
who exists in some relation to the universe 
created. But the postulate of creation rather 
negatives the doctrine of immanence. We can- 
not see that the doctrine of creation reduces 
the will of the creator to the physical agent 
of the universe. If the physical agent of the 
universe is the will of God, only a part of 'the 
universe was created. Evidently the princi- 



70 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

pal factor was not. So that the doctrine of 
immanence rather decimates the doctrine of 
creation. The doctrine of creation, properly 
construed, credits God with the creation of a 
universe, an integral, objective unit, in some 
definite relation to himself. The universe 
should be conceived as a unit involving its 
complemental dynamic and material elements. 
Those who accept creation and advocate im- 
manence hold that the will of man is a creat- 
ure capable of originating its own actions, 
and not identical with the will of God in any 
sense, separate from the working force of nat- 
ure. The doctrine of human intelligence and 
responsibility drives us to the conclusion that 
man is an entitative creature, significantly re- 
lated to God, whose actions are his own, the 
forces of whose being are nowise correlated 
to the will of God. And we construct ration- 
al theodicies with such independent factitive 
agents in the government of God. It is like- 
wise more rational and consistent to consider 
the physical universe equally a creature of 
God, force and matter the integral factors of 



Relation of God to Nature. 71 

that creature unit; and to attribute to force, 
the physical agent of the universe, an entita- 
tive existence of an original dynamic nature, 
simply to act. Whether such entitative exist- 
ence or complemental relationship of integral 
parts be predicated of matter and force or not, 
we necessarily think matter and force respect- 
ively under conditions of logical entitative- 
ness. As we attribute to man an entitative 
existence of an original moral and intelligent 
nature, so we should attribute to the physical 
its entitative existence of an original dynamic 
nature, simply to act. Force and matter are 
creatures, and they interact according to the 
physical conditions of their existence in work- 
ing out the ends of creation. It is easy to 
conceive that God impressed nature when he 
created and conditioned and related its facti- 
tive, components so as to define a line of phys- 
ical development that should in its funda- 
mental features represent his purpose, without 
designing or desiring that every phenomenon 
of such a creature should be correlated to the 
divine will. On this view a large proportion 



72 Doctrine and Function of Revelation, 

of the phenomena of nature are only incident- 
al to physical conditions that are not to be 
considered under the immediate control of 
any divine agency, but which arise from the 
interaction of matter and force in the origi- 
nal correlations iii cosmical nature. The di- 
vine supervision required by theism consists 
only in that influence necessary to maintain 
the original fundamental correlations of the 
factitive elements of physical nature. All the 
physical connection that theism demands of 
God is the maintenance of the physical integ- 
rity of the universe. The forms assumed by 
nature from time to time are the simple phys- 
ical results of original creation, and are no 
part of, nor are immediately related to, the 
workings of the will of God; so that I can- 
not concede that the doctrine of design leads 
to the doctrine of immanence. Its only value 
consists in proclaiming the universe the prod- 
uct of intelligence, without defining the rela- 
tionship. 

It does not require the reach of faith or the 
test of thought to postulate the creation of a 



Relation of God to Nature. 73 

universe composed of all the requisite struct- 
ural elements, dynamic and material, that 
works out its forms according to its original 
conditions, that the doctrine of immanence 
does. In this way we conserve the doctrinal 
personality of theism and the logical integrity 
of physical science. The God of theism and 
Christianity and the God of science can in no 
way conflict. It is more the misfortune of 
the human soul than the construction of nat- 
ure that has precipitated the implacable an- 
tagonism of theology and science. This con- 
flict which has been carried on since the dawn 
of intelligence has been subjective, without 
any basis in nature. 

This doctrine of God, as constituting no fac- 
titive element of nature, but its creator and 
preserver, leaves us free to follow the law of 
induction in the study of nature without fear 
of conflicting with revelation, and intensifies 
the obligation to the life demanded by revela- 
tions of the Scriptures. It gives a beautiful 
emphasis to the injunction of Jesus: "Seek 
ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 



74 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

ness." It constructs of Scripture a call to 
righteousness, and leaves science to the intel- 
lect of man. 

I cannot concede that force is thinkable 
only as the attribute of intelligent will, and 
therefore can find no necessity for making 
the forces of nature attributes of divinity in 
order to a theistic philosophy of the universe. 



CHAPTEK III. 

MIRACLES. 

SUCH a doctrine as I have announced does 
not exclude God from nature. It makes 
rational any special action of God needed in 
the system of nature developed under such 
conditions. If the study of phenomenal nat- 
ure by the law of induction leads as surely to 
the demand of supernatural action, upon such 
a view it can readily be granted. It is a law 
of God and of mind that the supernatural be 
minimized in a system of nature, and that it 
be conceded only when the natural phenome- 
na cannot be rationally referred to physical 
conditions and natural forces. A too ready 
invocation of the supernatural is weakness. 
We need to cultivate the disposition to call 
the supernatural into the natural only upon 
authoritative demands. It is weakness to de- 
pend upon the supernatural for explanations 

(75) 



76 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

of the natural. It is likewise weakness to 
deny the possibility of the supernatural, and 
to deny all demands for the supernatural in 
the natural. 

In any system of correlated forces and parts 
a degree of interference from without is possi- 
ble without violence to such a system. Any 
mechanical correlation of parts operated by a 
given force — e. g. } any complicated machinery — 
will admit a degree of mechanical interference 
without violence to the system. Any organism 
— e. g., the body of man — is so constructed, and 
the correlation of forces and functions is such, 
that a degree of vital interference is always 
possible without the destruction of the system. 
It is by no means necessary to make the forces 
of nature actions of intelligent will in order to 
make any interference of supernatural action 
possible or explicable. 

The doctrine of immanence has as great sig- 
nificance in rationalizing miracles as explain- 
ing the universe. We cannot deny miracles 
and accept the Bible. But there is some lat- 
itude in explaining the phenomena called mir- 



Miracles. 77 

acles. They are matters of history; so that 
we are dependent upon the historical state- 
ments of the Scriptures for the facts. This 
record represents these remarkable phenome- 
na as the immediate physical results of some 
supernatural force. They cannot be consid- 
ered, according to the record, facts that be- 
long to nature. They cannot be referred to 
the energies of nature in their natural corre- 
lations. They cannot, however, be separated 
from nature. They have always a physical 
basis, and they testify to the integrity of the 
physical forces involved. A miracle always 
involves the exercise of natural forces more 
or less. Natural laws and the principles of 
physical energies are never violated. As far 
as nature could be carried in its established 
channels of action they are natural. 

I have announced that we should conceive 
God not as a factitive, dynamic element of nat- 
ure, but as a being without physical relations, 
without physical action, "(a) Spirit" that ex- 
ists beyond natural bounds, who created a 
universe of physical character comprising all 



78 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

the elements, dynamic and material, neces- 
sary for structural development. We should 
view nature as a composite unit, a creature, 
its force as much a creation as its matter, in 
nowise correlated to the will of God as its 
working force. Such a physical system was 
so related, so conditioned, and so impressed 
by the Creator as to secure the initial move- 
ments in a line of structural development that 
illustrate a general purpose and show forth 
intelligence, as a thought takes material form 
by the hand of the artist, without making 
God the agent of such materialization. 

While God is not to be conceived as the 
agent producing the physical effects of nature, 
he must be conceived as capable of influenc- 
ing or modifying in some way the conditions 
under which the forces of nature act. By 
modifying the conditions of force the effects 
may be modified according to the purpose of 
the agent capable of such influence upon the 
conditions of physical energies. The forces 
themselves are not affected nor influenced by 
such an agent. They act according to their 



Miracles. 79 

original dynamic nature, simply to act. They 
may be conceived as incapable of being com- 
pelled into action as the will of man, but for 
different reasons. They can but act accord- 
ing to the physical conditions originally es- 
tablished. The only way of modifying their 
effects is to modify the conditions of action; 
for we may readily conceive that the effects 
of force are determined by the conditions un- 
der which it acts, and that these conditions 
are capable of much modification; also that 
these conditions are subject to change accord- 
ing to the possible changes of molecular and 
atomic relations. Such changes of conditions 
may be determined upon the principle of 
quantitative or qualitative atomic or molecu- 
lar differences incidentally effected. The pres- 
ence of electricity in water under certain dy- 
namic conditions secures an atomic change, 
whereby it is converted into gases; and like- 
wise the gases, in proper proportions, are con- 
verted into water. Here human intelligence 
through material mediation effects atomic 
changes exhibited under molecular forms by 



80 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

means of electricity. It is not difficult to con- 
ceive God capable of manipulating physical 
conditions in some way suggested by such 
physical experiments of man. The physical 
relations of electricity are so modified that it 
becomes a mechanical agent in the hands of 
intelligence. In some such way God accom- 
plishes the modification of physical conditions, 
and thus ultimate material results that repre- 
sent specific purpose without himself becom- 
ing the physical agent. The facts of nature 
lead us to believe that the possible changes 
are very great. 

Now in the explanation of miracles we are 
to understand that God has the power of 
modifying the conditions of natural forces, 
and that a miracle is produced by the direct 
agency of the physical energies that consti- 
tute the basis of the miracle. God fixes the 
conditions under which the forces acting nat- 
urally work out what he designs. There is 
no display of divine will as a physical agent 
that sets aside the forces of nature. 

Christ made wine of pure water. Here there 



Miracles, 81 

was displayed no supernatural energy project- 
ed as a temporary factor in nature. In the 
first place there was no violation of the fun- 
damental principles or laws of nature. We 
may conceive that God so modified the condi- 
tions of atomic action that the ultimate par- 
ticles of matter took up the forms and relations 
of the molecules of wine. In other words, 
God so modified the conditions of the ulti- 
mate forces involved in the water that the 
physical products of their natural action, un- 
der the supernaturally established conditions, 
was wine. Our chemistry declares the exist- 
ence of only two constituent elements in wa- 
ter — oxygen and hydrogen. But in addition 
to the constituent elements water in a state of 
nature always contains other matter in so- 
lution or suspension; so that the matter 
present in addition to the constituent ele- 
ments is to be considered. Moreover, we are 
not to think impossible the power of God to 
so modify the ultimate conditions of our ulti- 
mate chemical units as to bring forth by nat- 
ural forces the physical effects desired. Such 
6 



82 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

manifestations cannot be construed into evi- 
dence of physical relations as predicable of 
God. On the contrary, their entire evidence 
is against the view of God as the physical 
agent of nature. The force displayed in the 
phenomena of nature effected by supernatural 
influence is wholly physical and factitive in 
nature. The supernatural influence is exhib- 
ited as extraneous, wholly without factitive 
relations in nature. So, instead of construing 
the miracles of Scripture as evidence of the 
doctrine of immanence, I am compelled to 
view their evidence as against it entirely and 
as favoring the doctrine of the entire material 
integrity of the universe, and the spiritual 
nature of God as existent without physical 
correlations, yet capable of modifying the 
conditions of physical forces. 

The fact of creation we must accept without 
explanation, for the passage from subjective 
deity to an objective universe demanded by the 
acceptance of creation is possible to man only 
upon the principle of continuity which identi- 
fies the universe with God, So far as thought 



Miracles. 83 

is concerned we are compelled to think of the 
objective universe as a subjective potentiality 
prior to the act of creation, and the change 
from subjective potentiality to objective enti- 
tative existence made in the act of creation 
we cannot upon the principle of continuity 
think otherwise than a transformation of the 
original deity. We are to assume a point of 
time when nothing existed but God, or accept 
an eternity of matter. Begin thus with pure 
deity. By an act of deity the universe, a non- 
deity, an objective entity, begins a physical 
existence. It is impossible to think the gen- 
esis of such an entity elsewhere than in deity. 
Mind is equally impotent to think an absolute 
beginning of existence in the universe. Hav- 
ing postulated divine existence, the law of 
thought requires its continuance in nature. 
But there is a relief from this inevitable pan- 
theism of thought. In all his manifestations 
God leads man to conceive a being of entirely 
different conditions from the nature he discov- 
ers through his senses. He reveals himself as 
incapable of discovery by the senses. Here 



84 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

mind, compelled to think an entity existent be- 
yond all that is discoverable by the senses, is 
satisfied to realize an essential difference of 
entities at different poles of being, the one 
related to intellect, the other to the soul. 

Miracles may be regarded from the stand- 
point of objective effects, as results accom- 
plished in nature by means of natural ener- 
gies, and existing as they appear; or from the 
stand-point of subjective effects, as phenome- 
na of soul without objective validity. 

Some miracles were physical results beyond 
controversy. Others may be regarded as pure- 
ly subjective, with as much doctrinal and mor- 
al value as a picture or fancy of the mind, or 
a dream, in which divine communications 
have been made. 

The power of God to accomplish a moral 
end through miracles, under the form of ob- 
jective effects, involves the power to accom- 
plish similar ends by means of miracles 
under subjective forms. Miracles involving 
influence upon instinct may be readily ex- 
plained upon the principle herein advocated. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

EVOLUTION. 

EVOLUTION is the doctrine of the de- 
velopment of species by natural laws in 
natural conditions. 

In the form which Darwin gave it, it at- 
tempts only to explain the known phenomena 
of animal and vegetable life. Evolution lo- 
cates in nature the forces that work out the 
results observed. Its postulate is: the forces 
observed in nature are competent to do the 
Work of nature, and these are physical. It 
endeavors to show that one organic form was 
derived from antecedent forms, and that there 
is a law of graduation of organic structures 
from simple to complex, so that the com- 
plex were derived from the more simple. It 
teaches that the varieties and species as well 
as genera were derived by the gradual accu- 
mulation of slight successive modifications of 

(85) 



86 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

structure from antecedent forms. The organ* 
ism itself tends continually to undergo change. 
The interaction of environment and organ- 
ism, with the natural tendency to undergo 
change, gives rise to changes in the organism 
that arise in a general Way according to the 
general laws of nature, not according to any 
specific purpose to be accomplished in the or- 
ganism. Those changes of organism, very 
slight when in anywise tributary to the good 
of the species, serve to assist in adjusting or- 
ganism and environment, by a law of nature 
are preserved because they are useful and are 
used by the organism in the functions of its 
life. The slight successive modifications in 
the line of that already contributing to the 
general good of the species so effected are ac- 
cumulated and preserved by the law of inher- 
itance until visible and marked differences of 
organic structure become fixed and transmis- 
sible, correlated always to general environ- 
mental conditions. 

Darwin's hypothesis of evolution is that all 
specific differences are the accumulations of 



Evolution. 87 

slight successive modifications, nature never 
making "leaps;" that there is a continuous 
line of gradual accumulations of slight suc- 
cessive modifications from the original homo- 
geneous organism assumed to the culmina- 
tion in man. He does not claim, of course, 
the knowledge of all the forms necessary to 
make out this continuous line of development, 
but claims that his theory is not invalidated 
by the absence of transitional forms until the 
entire field is shown to afford no evidences of 
such a development* 

This theory of slight successive modifica- 
tions without breaks is very much modified by 
the force of evidence. There are strong evi- 
dences in the field that the law of nature did 
not conform to the principle of continuous 
slight successive modifications, but on the 
principle of correlation does produce marked 
differences of organic structure without refer- 
ence to immediate antecedent modifications. 
The doctrine of evolution most advocated is 
that "nature does make leaps," but the gen- 
eral principles announced by Darwin are sup- 



88 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

ported by all subsequent investigations of ev^ 
olutionists. 

The doctrine of evolution is not only ap- 
plied to the organic phenomena of the earth, 
but is applied to cosmical nature likewise. 
The physical system of the universe was de- 
veloped by the inherent tendency to change 
and general fitness, and adjustableness of the 
modifications effected in nature. Modifica- 
tions that do not conflict, but conserve the 
general stability and integrity of nature, work 
together in building up the system of univer- 
sal nature. 

Spencer and Haeekel apply the principles 
of evolution to the genesis of organic nature. 
The iaw of nature in regard to life is that life 
proceeds from antecedent life ; but this law 
leads either to a beginning or an eternity of 
life forms ; so that, life being a form or phe- 
nomenon of nature, evolution assumes the 
formation of life by natural laws in nature at 
some time in the history of the earth, like- 
wise a genesis of life in each habitable planet 
at some time in its history. This formation 



Evolution, 89 

of life in nature is nature's miracle which in- 
augurates the system of life to be modified* 
developed, and localized by the general laws 
of nature. 

The facts of nature indicate "leaps" in the 
line of organic development* Darwin and all 
Who adhere to his doctrine explain these ap- 
parent "leaps" by the loss of the intermedi- 
ate forms completing the continuous line of 
development. Huxley and others advocate 
the modification of the Darwinian theory by 
the insertion of "leaps," or breaks made in 
the progress of organic development. This 
latter is more consistent with facts as known, 
but the former has more logical consistency. 
And its advocates claim that before it can be 
invalidated the whole earth must be known to 
furnish no evidence of a continuous develop* 
ment, and positive evidence of the former. 

Mr. Wallace, by different means and at 
different times and places, formulated a doc- 
trine of evolution precisely identical with the 
Darwinian in principle, and presented the 
same class of facts to support it, with this 



90 Doctrine and Function of UevelatioiU 

marked difference: the facts as known afford 
evidence of a passage made without slight 
successive modifications from a given form to 
Well denned specific differences, and in the 
case of man to differences bo marked as to 
make it impossible to explain by reference to 
purely physical forces. He therefore infers 
the presence, in this and a few other cases, of 
supernatural influence as the principal f acton 
His whole argument is to substantiate the 
doctrine of evolution as a law of nature, with 
divine intervention in the case of man and a 
few other instances. He contends that all the 
elements of man's nature and his relations all' 
indicate a force above nature in his formation. 
Others contend that man is wholly natural* 
and that lie presents no more evidence of su- 
pernatural intervention than many other vital 
phenomena. 

The question that concerns us now is, Does 
the system of nature, as explained by evolu- 
tion, invalidate theism ? As Mr. "Wallace has 
satisfactorily shown, the world is convinced 
that evolution does not necessarily militate 



Evolution. 91 

against the doctrine of theism. It may readi- 
ly contribute to infidelity, not in virtue of any 
essential atheism inherent in the system, but 
in consequence of personal failure in spiritu- 
al adjustment, Mr. Darwin himself grew so 
gradually into atheism that he was not con- 
scious of the total rejection of Christianity 
into which he developed until he consciously 
contrasted his views of nature with Christian- 
ity. This lamentable decline of a noble char- 
acter into atheism is the result of a gradual 
neglect of the idea of God, revelation, and 
moral convictions rather than the conse- 
quence of any inherent antagonism of evolu- 
tion to the doctrines of God and revelation, 
People have been known to grow into atheism 
from the study of mathematics or any me- 
chanical line of thought. Atheism results 
from an effort to make a theory, in itself in- 
competent to do the Work of rational explana- 
tion, explain natural phenomena on the prin- 
ciple of some form of divine immanence. A 
God logically incompetent to do the work re- 
quired by the theism accepted is inevitably 



92 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

rejected, though oftentimes the rejection is 
gradual and unconscious* A system of Chris- 
tianity that demands the acceptance of a doc- 
trine of physical science whose God as the 
physical agent works out natural phenomena 
loses its hold upon the mind, and therefore 
the conscience of a people, when the advance 
in science discovers logical incompetence in 
the system or the God of such a system. In- 
stead of reforming the system, the tendency is 
to reject God and Christianity entirely, very 
illogically assuming the given system to be 
the correct statement of universal .Christiani- 
ty. I announce most unequivocally that a 
man may be a thorough-going evolutionist 
and at the same time an equally thorough-go- 
ing Christian. Infidelity attendant or con- 
comitant upon evolution is a sin of the indi- 
vidual rather than the theory, and suggests a 
failure of the individual in the line of con- 
science and religion. 

No one can yet claim the demonstration of 
evolution. There are points in this doctrine 
that are far from rational statement. The 



Evolution. 93 

theory compels a procedure beyond natural 
evidence. Its gravest difficulties are thus 
bridged, but not in violation of any law of 
thought, or of possible continuity of being, 
physical or psychical. It is not exactly the 
doctrine of transformation of species, though 
this is a possible corollary from it. 

The system of evolution proceeds upon the 
primary assumption of the ultimate identity 
of the vital forces of the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms, and likewise the identity of these 
forces and the general energies of nature. 
In some forms of the doctrine the identity of 
psychic forces and physical energies is claimed; 
so that there is a gradual passage from the 
original homogeneous energy of nature to the 
highly organized soul of man— different only 
in the degree of organization which makes 
possible the manifestation of force called 
vital, and soul phenomena. This is the ma- 
terialistic side of the theory. But Le Conte 
adopts this ultimate identity of soul and life 
forces, and claims that by a process of nature 
the original homogeneous force was gradually 



94 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

individuated, or separated from the general 
movement of physical forces, so that a por- 
tion of force becomes ultimately so entirely 
independent of the sum of physical energy 
that its continued separate existence as an in- 
dividual entity becomes a natural fact. It 
cannot again be resolved because it has be- 
come independent of all changes possible in 
nature. All that can be effected by the proc- 
ess of change in nature is the disruption of 
its relations to those forms of nature that 
change. This form of evolution claims for 
soul all its characteristics as a spirit, with all 
its possible future. It does not in any way 
discredit the soul by considering its possible 
origin in material conditions by a process of 
evolution that so conditions force as to destroy 
its physical character. All this is viewed as 
the work of God, and claims Bible authority 
— " God made man of the dust of the ground," 
etc. 

Evolution becomes theistic either by con- 
sidering supernatural intervention at points 
where all evidence of physical continuity fails, 



Evolution. 95 

or by referring the entire system of forces to 
the divine will. This latter I do not think 
credible, as I have endeavored to show in an- 
other place. The evidence of physical con- 
tinuity, in part at least, is beyond dispute. 
The most rational procedure would be to cred- 
it the natural evidence of continuity as far as 
it goes, and where logical passage cannot be 
made between breaks in nature a judicious 
invocation of the supernatural will violate 
neither nature nor thought, and will afford the 
most rational as well as the most creditable 
explanation of the system of things about us. 
The passage of mineral matter into organic 
forms giving rise to vital phenomena, and the 
reduction of organic to mineral can be ques- 
tioned by no one acquainted with the facts. 
Thus far there is demonstrated identity. 
Thus far the natural evidences are trustwor- 
thy. There is no such evidence in the field 
for a similar relation of vital conditions and 
soul phenomena. From the organization of 
the body to the soul there is a painful absence 
of experimental evidence. Here we are left 



96 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

to an intellectual procedure dependent upon 
education. It readily passes into materialism, 
following the law of physical continuity from 
mineral to organic matter. But monism ar- 
gued upon such a basis is not trustworthy. 
It is not the highest form of intellectual 
movement that predicates beyond trustworthy 
evidence continuity of what lies in the field of 
such evidence. It is better to search the field 
of the soul's appurtenant phenomena, and to 
combine the lines of evidence lying in organ- 
ic nature and in the soul itself respectively. 
Whatever may be considered the soul's origin, 
its existence is unquestionable. 

Taking up the line of natural evidence, and 
following it to its extremity, we can authorita- 
tively predicate of organization no more than 
that within such natural conditions arise phe- 
nomena that are absolutely without physical 
characteristics. It is not the highest order of 
philosophic thought that overlooks the evi- 
dence of something more than material, or 
matter in forms so entirely different in es- 
sential characteristics as to compel the pred- 



Evolution. 97 

ication of entities. A double-faced monistic 
entity is logical dualism. In other words, 
substance that on one side is physical, or ma- 
terial, and on the other is immaterial or psy- 
chical —a substance that is matter and soul at 
the same time — gives rise to valid mechanics 
and psychology, autonomy and volition. Em- 
phatically the evidences of biology are not 
conclusive for the identity of vitality and soul. 
We accept the chemistry of vitality and assert 
that the evidences do not in fact, and cannot 
in logic, invalidate the conclusion of entita- 
tive soul that moves and exists under condi- 
tions and laws other than physical. 
7 



CHAPTEE Y. 

SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

EVOLUTION does claim the identity of 
vegetable and animal vitality. Like- 
wise it asserts the essential identity of all the 
elements and forces that characterize the ani- 
mal. It maintains a significant difference in 
the actual manifestations of the degrees of in- 
tellectuality in the graduated system of ani- 
mal life. It does not in any of its forms deny 
the evidence of possible supernatural action in 
the case of man. By assuming the identity of 
universal vitality it does not deny soul. Vi- 
tality must be considered a purely physical 
phenomenon — a phenomenon of organic chem- 
istry. Soul is known to be essentially con- 
nected with such vital conditions, both for its 
genesis and its manifestation and development. 
We cannot predicate soul of all those phenom- 
ena original in animal organization that indi- 
(98) 



Soul and Instinct. 99 

cate intelligence. They are denominated by 
the general epithet instinct. We cannot deny 
to instinct the characteristics of intelligence; 
but we cannot therefore identify instinct with 
soul. While instinct and soul possess in com- 
mon the characteristic of intelligence, there 
are additional elements in soul of so signifi- 
cant difference that it is impossible to class 
the two things together further than the gen- 
eral characteristics. It will be observed that 
I have used the word intelligence in its gener- 
ic sense. If we explain instinct on the prin- 
ciple of association, we have involved the ele- 
mentary forms of intelligence as an essential 
principle in association. All the phenomena 
of instinct may be explained thus, but always 
granting the elementary form of intelligence 
mentioned above; and soul may be explained 
as an entitative something conscious of- its own 
existence, etc. Still the same class of phe- 
nomena in connection with soul call for the 
same explanation made of instinct. Discrim- 
inative sense perception in man is explained 
by the presence of mind or simple correlative 



100 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

nerve movement. Whatever explanation we 
make of such phenomena in man, the same 
must be made of the same class of phenomena 
in all animals. Thus far there must be iden- 
tity of rational existence. If, therefore, we 
infer the ultimate identity of man and animal 
rationality, and account for the actual differ- 
ence in degree by assuming a potential or la- 
tent form of human rationality in the animal, 
we have asserted an actual, factal difference 
great enough and significant enough to for 
ever prevent the classification of man and the 
animal on the basis of rationality; for poten- 
tial rationality in the algce does not induce the 
most fanatical evolutionist to classify such 
weed on the basis of rationality. Latent or 
potential character does not elevate the creat- 
ure. The individual possessing such poten- 
tiality can never under the laws of nature de- 
velop such character for itself. By a long 
lineage nature may bring into actual existence 
in some of the derived forms such potential 
character; but it counts nothing to the ante- 
cedent forms. So that, whatever the identity 



Soul and Instinct. 101 

of potential character in man and the animal 
kingdom, it can count nothing in the investi- 
gation of present forms. If the Darwinian 
form of evolution be true, and man be the de- 
monstrable product of a long line of "slight 
successive modifications," it can prove nothing- 
more than the inevitable fact of a difference 
so great as to remove man effectually from the 
kingdom of animal nature in regard to his in- 
telligence. It brings man only insignificantly 
nearer the animal than the doctrine of crea- 
tion of species, and grants him all the wide 
difference. It only intensifies his world rela- 
tions. 

If the modified form of Darwinian evolu- 
tion, as advocated by Huxley and others, be 
true, and man be the product of natural proc- 
esses that leave no record of immediate ante- 
cedence, he is shown to stand out conspicu- 
ously in nature — a volume of revelation of 
nature that must forever command admiration 
and attention. 

But this makes so easy Mr. Wallace's infer- 
ence of divine intervention that it is in every 



102 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

way as consistent with facts and logic — indeed, 
rather having the advantage in point of logical 
consistency with the line of evidence — that we 
naturally lean toward him, possibly from the 
influence of theistic education, but I am in- 
clined to think on purely rational evidences. 
The evolution of Darwin or Huxley does not 
of necessity exclude God from nature. Those 
forms of the doctrine are compatible with the- 
ism. Such doctrine of evolution is considered 
as the expression of a system of nature, oper- 
ated by natural forces, but under the general 
supervision of God; else the law of evolution 
is the law of nature, and the force that oper- 
ates under such conditions is the will of God — 
the doctrine of divine immanence applied to 
evolution. Those who can accept the doctrine 
of immanence can readily make such applica- 
tion without conflict of principles. This is an 
easy exit from the trouble. All that science 
can or may do for evolution is to prove that it 
is the law of universal nature. After that the 
relation of nature to God, and the whole phi- 
losophy of theism remains apart from physic- 



Soul and Instinct, 103 

al philosophy. Its integrity remains, whatever 
may be the demonstrations of physical science. 
An actual demonstration of the doctrine of 
evolution will not invalidate the doctrines of 
theism. Some form of evolution will probably 
be established as the law of nature. There 
are many pointed evidences of such. There 
are also many grave difficulties in the way. It 
is true that such a system makes easy the pas- 
sage to infidelity, but I have already shown 
that such is more the sin of the individual 
than the theory. 

There is no need of fear and trembling on 
the part of Christians. What is especially 
needed is greater intelligence in the ranks of 
Christians — a more intelligent faith, a recog- 
nition of the validity of creed-modifications 
compatible with practical piety. There should 
be the recognition of the fact that doctrinal 
Christianity is not in conflict and cannot be 
in radical or rational conflict with the doc- 
trines of physical science. It should be con- 
tinually remembered that Christianity sets 
forth no doctrine of science as an article of 



104 Doctrine and Function of Beuelation. 

faith; that its claim is limited to the spiritual 
life of man; that science will properly adjust 
itself when man is properly adjusted in his 
spiritual relations. It should be emphasized 
that it is a duty of the individual to maintain 
the spiritual integrity of his character while 
he investigates the physical conditions of the 
world It should be taught as a doctrine of 
rational, religious science that there is a phys- 
ical system of nature, having laws and energies 
peculiar to itself, and competent to do the 
work of nature; that the will of God is in no 
sense the " working force of nature," and can- 
not be rationally made the integral agent of 
nature and the God of theism; that this sys- 
tem of nature indicates in marked ways and 
in indisputable points the presence of a force 
not structural or integral in nature, but apart 
from and above the working forces of nature, 
capable of maintaining the physical integrity 
of nature and the continuity of physical ener- 
gies; that such a system makes easily rational 
an exercise of creative power in nature under 
natural conditions ; and that such an origin of 



Soul and Instinct 105 

man is in every way as rational and as con- 
sistent with natural evidences as his purely 
physical origin. An inflexible monism cannot 
remove the natural evidences of a practical 
dualism, however it may prejudice the mind 
of the evolutionist against theoretical dualism. 
An absolute, ultimate monism cannot destroy 
the actual dualistic form of rational creature 
existence. Monism is forced to the necessity 
of denominating its ultimate something "a 
double-faced unity or somewhat, with one side 
physical and one spiritual." The necessity for 
the spiritual "side" of the monistic "unity" 
arises from the facts of nature; and so inex- 
orable are these facts that no ultimate monist- 
ic unity can repudiate the presence of " spirit " 
in some active, factitive form in nature as a 
part of the system of nature. This necessity 
for a spiritual agent in nature should be care- 
fully distinguished from all lines of evidence 
for the existence of God. The argument for 
the existence of God is another matter alto- 
gether. Were monism demonstrable it could 
be construed as pertaining only to the system 



106 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

of the universe. The idea of God would re- 
main, and the relation of such a universe to 
God would have to be defined. The reduction 
of the universe to the action of integral facti- 
tive elements and forces could not in any way 
destroy or invalidate the doctrine of God as 
an existence beyond and independent of the 
universe. 

It is entirely natural to involve the God idea 
in the idea of the Universe, and to combine 
them variously in the solution of physical ex- 
istence, but objectively they are radically sep- 
arate as thinkable objects. An order of se- 
quence is a logical necessity, however, when 
the two are considered in their relations. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

WHY ALL FORMS DO NOT REACH UP TO MAN. 

ONE point in the doctrine of evolution 
oftentimes discredits the system because 
imperfectly expressed and understood only in 
a vague way by the ordinary advocate of the 
doctrine. I do not just now recall any defi- 
nite discussion of the point by any eminent 
evolutionist. Probably they have not regard- 
ed the matter of sufficient significance. It 
has become quite significant in the form of an 
objection to the system among some who dis- 
credit evolution either upon logical or relig- 
ious grounds. 

It is generally put in the form of a ques- 
tion: If evolution is true, how is it that the va- 
rious forms of animals stop by the way and 
never reach up to man in the process of evo- 
lution? How is it that only one family cul- 
minated in man? 

(107) 



108 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

The fact that historical modifications of or- 
ganisms in a state of nature are limited to va- 
rieties — never reaching specific modifications 
— cannot really be construed against the doc- 
trine of evolution. The fixedness of specific 
limits allow a certain amplitude of vibration 
in organic changes. The fixed character of 
such limits is to be considered more as the 
permanent adjustment of organism to general 
natural conditions so as to suppress the tend- 
ency to organic change beyond the specific 
amplitude compatible with specific identity, 
than any radical specific character. 

Permanent structures acquire such prepo- 
tent influence over the reproductive system as 
to secure their transmission in such force as 
to antagonize the tendency to change beyond 
the given specific limits. The permanent 
forms of specific types are the products of 
cosmical in connection with organic modifica- 
tions, and mark the history of organic nature. 
The general physical conditions have so dom- 
inated the system of organic nature that cer- 
tain specific forms have been made perma- 



Why All Forms Do Not Reach up to Man. 109 

nent, such specific forms having become fully 
adjusted and contracted their organic poten- 
tialities within the lines of development made 
possible by the environmental conditions. The 
entire system of life and nature is considered 
as a whole, and these definitely fixed forms 
constitute the system actually developed and 
therefore permanent as such. The whole sys- 
tem moving on a line of development toward 
man, various divergences were made, the de- 
velopments reaching as high as the general 
physical conditions would admit, with sub- 
divergences — all becoming permanent in rela- 
tion to their environmental conditions. The 
central line of organic movement that reached 
up to man and became permanent in him pos- 
sessed greater potency of change, and persist- 
ed in the tendency to change in the line of 
antecedent changes, until the accumulations 
of "slight successive modifications," accord- 
ing to Darwin, amounted to man. According 
to Huxley, the specific limits were overleaped 
at one bound into the immense differences of 
man. According to Wallace, this movement 



110 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

was effected by divine intervention, and all 
agree that man as a product of nature is of 
such composition and relations that a change 
from him and his relations as a factitive ele- 
ment of nature would be degeneration; that 
he marks the climax of possible changes ad- 
vantageous within the limits of his natural 
existence. The various permanent types of 
life work together in the general system of 
life developed to maintain the general system 
of nature actually developed. Life forms and 
nature forms are correlatives, acting upon 
each other in the progress of nature, with si- 
multaneous and successive developments. A 
thoroughly informed man will not ask why 
existent species do not proceed in their de- 
velopment to man just as the one type that 
reached up to man did. Such a condition of 
organic nature as we find prevailing was the 
result of that physical system of nature called 
evolution. The principles claimed for the sys- 
tem necessitating, without fatalism, just those 
forms that exist, nature as it is is the out- 
growth of such a system. The lower perma- 



Why All Forms Do Xot Reach up to Man. Ill 

nent types and the gradual extinction of types 
indicate the law of progress. 

An individual may be subjected to a series 
of circumstances in the formative period of 
his development that make permanent in his 
body certain modifications which are trans- 
missible, and so become characteristic of a 
family. This principle is applicable to the or- 
ganic body of nature. Certain circumstances 
at certain stages of organic development pro- 
duced modifications that became, in conse- 
quence of the correlation of organism and 
general physical conditions, permanent types. 
It counts nothing to argue the simultaneous 
existence in the same general physical con- 
ditions of all the species of animal and veg- 
etable life. The present forms are complex 
products. Likewise, the present conditions of 
nature are by no means homogeneous. The 
general environments of all organic forms are 
composite quantities, containing elements cor- 
responding respectively to the various life 
forms. The gradual extinction of types is due 
to the gradual elimination by general change 



112 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

of those elements of environment correspond- 
ing to the forms of life becoming extinct. Just 
as the inauguration of environmental changes 
inaugurates modifications of organic forms, 
and, adjusting themselves in permanent rela- 
tions, mark the existence of a permanent type 
of life, so the reversal of such environmental 
movements works the extinction of types de- 
pendent upon the forms or elements of envi- 
ronments so changed; so that it would be 
physically impossible for all life forms to 
reach up to man in their development as well 
as aside from the nature or requirements of 
the theory of evolution. 

The theistic evolutionist views the matter 
in a little different light. His stand-point is 
from the divine purpose. He sees in all the 
forms a divine purpose. Life has developed 
as God designed it should. The theist may 
thus consider the matter, or he may consider 
the whole matter with more special regard to 
emphasis upon the physical system of nature, 
and not attribute a divine purpose to every 
life form, but regard only the final outcome, 



Why All Forms Do Not Beach tip to Man. 113 

together with the important modifications 
representative of purpose. He may regard 
nature as the outgrowth of a purpose of God 
modified by physical incidents of the process 
of unfolding. Mr. Dana regards the entire 
system of nature developed under the law of 
evolution as the gradual unfolding of God's 
purpose in nature, God in creation beginning 

with a view to the final culmination in man. 
8 



CHAPTEE YIL 

EVOLUTION NOT FATALISM. 

A SEMES of acts, connected each with its 
antecedent so as to determine a law of 
sequence, illustrates the fatalism involved in 
evolution. It is a system of movements in 
matter, the molecular and atomic conditions 
of which necessitate sequence that marks its 
progress in physical changes which illustrate 
the mechanical sequence inevitable in material 
movements. The system of changes begun in 
any given direction might have been jostled, 
or significantly modified, if not totally dis- 
rupted. It is generally taught, however, that 
the system must run its course before in- 
terruption can take place ; that the planet goes 
through the cycle of evolutional changes and 
reverts to its original conditions, etc. Given 
the original "star -dust," homogeneous and 

"without form," the lines of possible devel- 
(114) 



Evolution Sot Fatalism. 115 

opment are indicated by the radii of a sphere. 
In whatever line development actually begins, 
the system of nature is developed in that par- 
ticular line by a law of sequence inevitable 
in the movements of nature. That the history 
of our planet indicates a gradual progressive 
movement toward man is unquestionable. 
That the history of the universe indicates, as 
far as discovered, a similar progressive move- 
ment toward present forms is likewise unde- 
niable. But the facts of nature, as far as 
known, only indicate a line of development 
actually inaugurated and mainly adhered to 
up to the present. They furnish no warrant 
for the theory of evolutional fatalism. They 
furnish no evidence that no other lines of de- 
velopment were ever wholly disrupted, after 
partial development. As a physical system it 
must be considered liable to fatal interruptions 
along the lines of possible development. 

The inauguration of initial changes marks 
the departure from original homogeneous 
forms. Some line of advance movement hence 
becomes an inevitable fact, not a fatality. 



116 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

Whether the course of nature was jostled from 
one to another line may not be knowable, but 
is a thinkable and a probable phenomenon in 
the early movements of universal matter be- 
fore the present line of unfolding was made 
permanent. Viewed apart from extraneous 
influence, the movements of the homogeneous 
mass mast be regarded as the inevitable action 
of the forces of nature that cannot but act ac- 
cording to their original dynamic nature sim- 
ply to act. The original mass conceived as 
homogeneous must not be conceived as mo- 
tionless. The doctrine of immanence projects 
the divine will into a motionless mass. Hence 
motion is in the direction of divine purpose. 
The doctrine advocated in this volume attrib- 
utes to the physical energies appurtenant to 
matter all the movements in the original ho- 
mogeneous mass. God maintains the physical 
integrity of the universe. Perhaps the line 
of development originally entered and mainly 
adhered to was the outcome of an initial inu 
pression upon the universe in its primordial 
simplicity. Else God may have so modified 



Evolution Not Fatalism. 117 

the ultimate conditions of physical action as 
to secure general material movement along 
the line illustrated in nature. It also may 
have required divine supervision to maintain 
the integrity of the movements along this line 
of essential advance. 

It is probably more proper to consider the 
line marked out by the progressive movement 
of nature a zigzag rather than a radius — rec- 
tilinear; for at each point of specific type the 
possible lines of modification must be consid- 
ered indefinite, with possibly greater tenden- 
cy to change in the direction of antecedent 
changes become permanent. 

The argument from design is oftentimes too 
prodigal of its applications. Purpose is found 
illustrated in every sequence of events or 
movements. Hence the existence of an In- 
telligence independent and previous is in- 
ferred. And if this principle be acted upon 
thoroughly, every mechanical series of events 
occurring in consecutive order becomes equally 
illustrative of intelligent purpose ; whereas all 
events occurring in such consecutive order as 



118 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

to define a series mark a law of sequence that 
after the occurrence may be made to define a 
credible purpose. All consecutive events or 
movements that exist in the relation of ante- 
cedent and consequent inevitably take on the 
appearance of purposed action; whereas the 
reality is only a dynamic relationship. The 
reason for such dynamic relation lies in the 
mystery of the origin of nature, imparted in 
the act of creation, or originated in the gene- 
sis of matter. 



PAET III. 



Man in Kelation to the Universe. 

(119) 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DOCTRINE OF EIGHT. 

THERE are certain principles that mani- 
fest their existence only through intelli- 
gent will in the relations of such an entity. 
Moral principles cannot be illustrated in me- 
chanical relations. The existence of man in 
the complex relations of man with man, and 
man to God and to the world, is the condition 
of the exhibition of these principles. All 
these relations under the law of intelligence 
inevitably reveal these principles, so that they 
become objects of consideration, and regula- 
tive of duty. The principle of right, when ap- 
plied to cosmical movements, is entirely dif- 
ferent from the principle regulative of human 
action and life. The principle affects the ac- 
tions and character of man proportionally to 
the knowledge of it. It cannot be said that 

the ultimate principle of right touches life at 

(121) 



122 DottruM nnd Funttion x>f Ifevvtatmu 

any practical point. It is only right in its 
subjective form that affects character— right 
as a form of knowledge, concrete. 

I submit the query, Is the law of right in 
the life of man a thing independent of the ac- 
tion of his mind as the law of gravity, or the 
forces of his body; or is it a thing whose ex- 
istence and influence in the life of the world 
is dependent upon the action of mind? The 
world is affected by the solution of this query. 
The query is one that must be answered. 
Men may pose themselves in a negative at* 
titude toward it, but the answer is given un- 
consciously, and affects the whole current of 
the life. The efficiency of practical Chris- 
tianity is contingent upon the answer given 
by the individual, and in general by the pop- 
ular heart. Beyond any peradventure the 
law of right is related to the life of man in 
some significant way not yet fully appreciat- 
ed. That he is conscious of impulses that 
violate the deliverance of his soul upon the 
question of right cannot be gainsaid. That 
he is conscious of impulses in harmony with 



The Doctrine of Might 123 

this fundamental consciousness is practically 
demonstrated in the life of every man. The 
whole current of life testifies to the conscious- 
ness of a universal presence in the life of man 
of the law of right, In every radius of action 
he is met by its imperious claims, in many 
instances erected into inviolable restrictions. 
The consciousness of a universal presence of 
right is equally authoritative in the revela^ 
tion of its inseparableness from human life* 
If violated or obeyed, it asserts with equal 
emphasis its presence in man's life* 

This universal presence and this insepara* 
bleness of the law of right means more than 
an organic tangibility, affecting life in conse- 
quence of such relation. Universal presence 
and tangibility do not involve universal or 
necessary prevalence. The law of right and 
the law of gravity are similar only in the point 
of universality. Eight is not a property of 
mind as gravity is of matter; yet mind is so 
constituted and so related as to render an au- 
thoritative deliverance concerning it. So far 
from being in the relation of a property to 



124 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

mind, right has a factitive existence in con- 
scious life contingent npon a conscious effort 
of thought involving logical procedure. Such 
presence of right is possible only under con- 
ditions of intelligence. 

Every phase, feature, and phenomenon of 
right seems to indicate an existence in rela- 
tions of externality to mind, capable of appre- 
hending and construing such phenomena in 
its own actions, the extent of its influence al- 
ways proportional to the apprehension, the 
intensity of its presence to the construction 
thereof. 

If the church drift unconsciously into the 
creed of universal and necessary prevalence 
of right among men, concrete as well as doc- 
trinal Christianity cannot escape the effects, 
and the whole creed of intelligent agency is 
unconsciously subverted; for the doctrine of 
an ultimate necessary prevalence of right and 
intelligent agency are radically incompatible. 
The former means that the prevalence of right 
among men is independent of mind and hu- 
man life; that it shall prevail, as the principle 



The Doctrine of Right. 125 

of gravity, over universal humanity. The lat- 
ter means the prevalence o£ right, as the prev- 
alence of evil, is conditioned in a conscious 
effort of mind — the voluntary construction of 
the presence of right as the basis of action. 
If the Church construct a creed of such char- 
acter, it must be construed into an unintend- 
ed antagonism to the prosperity of Zion. 
Prevalence of the law of right among men is 
impossible under any condition other than 
the voluntary adoption of such law as the ba- 
sis of action. From the numerous individual 
rejections of such law we can legitimately in- 
fer the possibility of its universal rejection at 
any time or for all time, and hence the com- 
plete failure of the doctrine of right to affect 
human character. A moral mechanics is an 
impossibility. Eight, in human vocabularies, 
is concrete — the principle of right apprehend- 
ed and construed. Like every other principle 
that affects action and character, it must have 
the sanction of judgment either positively or 
negatively. 

The development of faith in a creed of the 



126 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

necessary prevalence of right superinduces 
a confidence in the spirit and forces compre- 
hended in such a creed to effect such preva- 
lence independently of all subjective relations 
whatsoever. I submit that a faith and confi- 
dence involving such violation of fundament- 
al principles of human life are destructive of 
the finest and highest possibilities of soul. 
The popular mind may never make the dis- 
crimination. But a popular faith that com- 
prehends in its creed a dynamic system com- 
petent to effect its greatest ends in human 
life as a basis of operation renders man pow- 
erless to individualize himself in the economy 
of such a system. Any system of spiritual 
forces that affects man thus degrades him. 
The intense individualism of his life must be 
preserved inviolate. 

The prevalence of the law of right in nature 
may work the elimination of man, unless he 
intelligently adjust himself to its principles. 
There is a necessary on-going of universal nat- 
ure toward its ultimate forms. Man's intelli- 
gence makes his participation in such univer- 



The Doctrine of Rigid. 127 

sal movement voluntary rather than necessa- 
ry. Nevertheless he is not wholly independ- 
ent of this silent and resistless on-moving of 
nature. 

Instead of posing in an attitude of depend- 
ence upon some indefinable element of hu- 
man nature that will work out the ends of a 
creed, the heroic part of life lies in regarding 
one's self a factor in working out the ends of 
life under the law of right intelligently con- 
strued, with a creed that formulates the true 
ends and the true nature of human existence. 
The doctrine that "the right will prevail" re- 
duces the forces of man's spiritual nature to 
a composure subversive of the conditions of 
such prevalence. How can a man exert him- 
self as a factor in the moral economy of the 
world, when his creed declares the contrary, 
without doing violence to his moral nature? 
A renunciation of creed, or its revision, must 
first be accomplished. The formative power 
that a creed has over the character of those 
who adopt it is not fully appreciated. A 
creed positing in supernatural elements of 



128 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

human life the forces that must determine its 
ultimate issues jostles the interrelation of man 
and nature, and disturbs the equilibrium of 
his position. A creed that posits in man the 
conditions under which the kingdom of God 
must prevail emphasizes him and secures the 
finest actions of his nature. 

We must distinguish the principle of right 
from its concrete form in human thought and 
action. The application of this principle to 
the life of man is wholly different from its ap- 
plication in cosmical movements. If virtue is 
a possibility only under conditions of intel- 
ligent agency, its prevalence, to any degree 
whatsoever, must arise under such conditions. 
If the principle of right is self-assertive, its 
prevalence is independent of human nature 
save as a basis of its manifestation, as mass 
becomes the basis of the manifestation of 
gravity. Belief in the self-assertive character 
of right, whether consciously or otherwise de- 
termined, reduces man to a passivity incon- 
sistent with his nature. If the prevalence of 
right in human life does not have insuperable 



The Doctrine of Right 129 

conditions in the will and intelligence of man, 
upon what principle of equity can the pres- 
ent state of the world be explained? Upon 
what principle can we explain the introduc- 
tion and subsequent dominion of evil in the 
world? 

The history of the Church and its life to- 
day afford abundant evidence of the uncon- 
scious power of the creed of the necessary 
prevalence of the law of right in human life. 
The indifference of the Church on the vital 
issues of its existence is to be explained by 
an unconscious or unacknowledged faith in 
such a creed. Eight, in its application to cos- 
mical issues, will prevail independently of man 
— working ultimate good only to those that 
love God, inasmuch as they conform their 
lives to tho principle of right, thus perpet- 
uating their relation to cosmical movements 
as a correlative of their own existence, and 
condition of man's development. Personal 
responsibility in the world's history cannot 
be developed to any degree of intensity under 

such a creed. Without an intense conscious- 
9 



130 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

ness o£ the structural value of life in the com- 
position of the world man's nature first as- 
sumes a negative attitude toward right, then 
becomes positively evil, and all consciousness 
of factitive relations gives place to an intense 
personalization of life. 

An individual without antecedents contin- 
ued in indefinite isolation would be found to 
have developed a sense of right only so far 
as it applied directly to himself in relation to 
some higher being whose particular form is a 
structure of his own mind. Such isolation 
would result in a formulation of the principle 
of right essentially different from its formula- 
tion growing out of the complicated relations 
of a plurality of individuals having common 
nature, relation, and interests. 

The principle of right is found to have a 
more complicated application in the relations 
of individuals in a comunity than in the rela- 
tions of an individual to the world. The sense 
of right developed in the former relations will 
be found to comprehend the application of 
the principles in the latter, and to be more 



The Doctrine of Bight 131 

complicated in nature and to exert a greater 
influence on the life and actions of men. It 
is not that right in different relations is es- 
sentially different, but that applied in differ- 
ent relations it takes on a concrete form mod- 
ified by such relations. It is construed in 
accordance with the demands and necessities 
of such relations. It is not, therefore, unrea- 
sonable to conclude that relationship becomes 
the condition both of the sense and construc- 
tion of right in the life of man. It is scarce- 
ly necessary to add that relationship involves 
capacity to comprehend and construe the 
principles focalized in it so far as they affect 
character. 

Christianity, since its introduction into the 
world, has been burdened with an intolerable 
ignorance of its essential forces and relations. 
And yet the Spirit of God has struggled un- 
der such limitations to affect the life of the 
world in some feeble degree. No doubt this 
Spirit has turned away and wept bitterly over 
the stolid setting of the will of man against 
the higher truths of Christianity. The zeal 



132 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

of God's house has consumed him. God is 
shut out of the life of man by ignorance of 
his true relations thereto. The religious val- 
ue of a man's life is proportional to the intel- 
ligence involved in his religion. Purpose can 
never transcend knowledge. Religion can nev- 
er exceed its purposes. A man of stolid ig- 
norance may be good, but such goodness is of 
a low grade, and has but little practical value 
in the economy of grace. Such a man is in- 
capable of purposes commensurate with his 
essential nature. He, therefore, is guilty of 
trammeling his own nature. When a man's 
purposes for good are commensurate with his 
knowledge, he is as good as he can be under 
such condition of intelligence, provided his 
life measures up to his purposes. If the cir- 
cumstances of such a man's life make greater 
knowledge impossible, and if these circum- 
stances were wholly beyond his control, it 
seems reasonable and Christian that he have 
the approbation of God; but if he might have 
exerted an influence in the determination of 
favorable circumstances, thus making greater 



The Doctrine of Right 133 

knowledge, and therefore higher purposes, 
possible, is it so reasonable or Christian that 
this man have God's approval? A lack of 
knowledge will render impossible a given 
line of action, that has no other conditions of 
impossibility. The economy of grace seems 
to be adjusted to the purposes of man's heart. 
I see nothing in the constitution of man or in 
the economy of the world that could make a 
disastrous prevalence of evil impossible. The 
world may yet be called to pass its darkest 
season. The devil certainly has free access 
to the life of man. 

Human nature is so constituted as to pro- 
ceed in its development naturally upon a ba- 
sis of right; for the ends of his existence can 
be attained in no other way. However " natu- 
rally " man sins, and however " natural " be his 
" depravity," his ultimate nature certainly de- 
clares for the right, and his career as indicat- 
ed by his composition together with his rela- 
tions and position in the economy of the 
world makes the only natural course possible 
to him one of righteousness. A course of sin 



134 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

puts him in conflict with nature, and in rad- 
ical antagonism to his own interests. Hence 
the ultimate issue of the system of nature is 
the elimination of the sinner from all facti- 
tive relations in its economy. What can hell 
be but a place of no world relations for beings 
whose natural existence is one of such rela- 
tions? Do not all the figures used by Christ 
to express it indicate such as the essential 
feature of that place of "outer darkness?" 

When all creeds teach that the prevalence 
of right in human" life is conditioned in man 
himself, and when men realize this truth, the 
conquest of the world by the Spirit of God 
will be easy. 

Depravity, whatever it be, cannot render 
man powerless to properly adjust himself 
when it leaves him in world relations. In the 
economy of grace the Spirit supplies in him 
the conditions of such world relations. 

The mission of the Spirit in the world, as 
indicated by application to every individual, 
is to teach every man his personal obligations 
to the truth and to the world, and to fix jn 



The Doctrine of Right 135 

liini convictions of personal responsibilities 
inseparable from his life. So far from reliev- 
ing the conscience of man on the line of duty, 
Christianity is valuable only as it emphasizes 
conscience and deepens the convictions of re- 
sponsibility. 



CHAPTEK II 

THE DOCTRINE OF DEPRAVITY. 

THE highest warrant for the final preva- 
lence of right is its harmony with hu- 
man nature, and an ultimate constitutional 
tendency in human nature toward the right, 
and the universal presence of the Spirit of 
God to supplement the efforts of the soul in 
such tendency. What is popularly called de- 
pravity, and what is most visible in human 
life, is the. subverted region of impulses, not 
the ultimate tendency of his nature. The 
subversion of the region of impulses, not 
the ultimate tendency of his nature, ren- 
ders man unnaturally sensitive to the influ- 
ence of outward relations. Man is related to 
the outward world in his feelings in such a 
way as to make the forces of such world self- 
assertive in this department of his nature. 
The higher department of human nature con- 
(136) 



The Doctrine of Depravity. 137 

tains no self-assertive force. Such a charac- 
teristic is incompatible with the nature of 
virtuous activity. Unless man in the sover- 
eignty of his agency assert himself, he will be 
gradually and imperceptibly dominated by the 
self-assertive forces of his lower nature, which 
act according to their original dynamic nat- 
ure. Sin has given a disproportionate activ- 
ity to these forces. In this disproportionate 
activity of the forces of man's lower nature, 
which is exhibited in the continual encroach- 
ments upon the forces of his higher nature, 
thereby inducing conformity of action, is lo- 
cated the "depravity" of the human race, 
which exhibits a tendency to evil continually. 
This unnatural sensitiveness to "earthy" in- 
fluences renders conformity of action in the 
region of moral forces easier than opposition. 
The will, which is without self-assertion, may 
be induced into the line of action of the 
"earthy" influences in violation of what may 
be called its constitutional tendency. Such 
tendency must not be conceived as possessing 
any determining value whatever. Induction 



138 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

of the will into any line of action does no vio- 
lence to its nature. A purposive value at- 
taches to every possible action of the will. 
But such value is graduated on the basis of 
intelligence. In the case of induction the 
purpose involved fixes the direction of the 
inducing forces as the line of action. 

The will alone is without self-assertion. 
All the elements of psychic nature except the 
will act according to an original dynamic nat- 
ure simply to act, and their activity is corre- 
lated to physical conditions or objective ele- 
ments. All the self-assertive forces in human 
nature have relation to definite externality. 
There cannot be a desire without an external 
object, real or factitious. Love cannot exist 
without, relation to a definite object, real or 
factitious. Intellect cannot act without rela- 
tion to something in the relation of object. 
Truth is not a creature of mind, but exists 
objectively to mind, and is independent of 
mind. The law of intellect is in an important 
sense mechanical. Mind follows the line de- 
fined by evidence perceived, and its move- 



The Doctrine of Depravity. 139 

meDts partake of the nature of the mechanic- 
al rather than the volitional. That is, under 
the law of perceived evidence intellect acts 
inevitably. The will does not and cannot 
originate action anywhere save in itself. It 
is the creator of its own actions, the agent of 
its own movements, but is powerless to orig- 
inate action anywhere else. The other forces 
of human nature act of themselves, after the 
order of physical action. The will is self -de- 
termining — it consciously determines itself 
to conscious purposive action. Man's physic- 
al nature is the basis of relationships to the 
general physical world. His psychical nature 
is correlated through his physical to the cos- 
mical or general nature. In the region of 
self-assertive forces he is responsive to the 
movements of the physical. The self-assert- 
ive forces act in relation to outward or inward 
influences without regard to the principle of 
right. Such actions cannot in themselves be 
virtuous or vicious. There can be no moral 
quality inherent in them. The original rela- 
tion of the will to these forces was such as 



140 Doctrine and Function of Revelation, 

to make easy and natural its control over 
them. 

As a rational creature under the law of re- 
sponsibility it is the duty of man to conscious- 
ly control all the forces of his nature. The 
entire system of dynamic energies constitutes 
in their integral relationships the structural 
elements of character. They are not sinful 
or virtuous inherently. The inevitable re- 
sults of their action continued in any given 
direction is character. It is the accumulation 
of the psychic effects of these dynamic ele- 
ments that in the aggregate constitutes char- 
acter. The function of will is to control these 
elements in the direction of virtuous activity 
in order to the development of virtuous char- 
acter. They cannot of themselves develop 
such character. The responsibility of man 
lies in the necessity of conscious, intelligent 
mastery of these dynamic elements of his nat- 
ure, and the persistent maintenance of their 
continued activity in the direction of virtue 
intelligently determined. If the will is sim- 
ply negative toward these elements, they act 



The Doctrine of Depravity. 141 

without conscious virtuous control. As man 
is under the spiritual necessity of intelligent- 
ly controlling their action, such a negative 
attitude is sin; for the structural forces are 
allowed to proceed in working out character 
without spiritual motive. These forces are 
naturally subject to the influence of will. 
But if allowed to act without such control, 
they acquire a potency of action that disrupts 
the original relation of will to them. Such 
disruption does not affect the will in any way 
directly. It has its original constitutional 
power of self -determinate action. Its ulti- 
mate nature is not changed. It simply loses 
its influence over the dynamic elements of 
soul and life, and they proceed without refer- 
ence to right, deprived of the spiritual influ- 
ence of purpose. Such disruption is death. 
That relation of will that makes practicable 
its sovereignty over human nature is life. 
Now this disruption may be accomplished 
either by purposely directing the action of 
these forces against the knowledge of virtuous 
activity, willfully transgressing known law, or 



142 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

by a simple negative attitude toward their ac- 
tivity, unconsciously assumed. The law of 
virtue requires a positive, aggressive move- 
ment on the part of will; so that a negative 
attitude unconsciously assumed is as much a 
violation of virtue as the purposed transgres- 
sion. Original sin, whether by the uncon- 
sciously assumed negative attitude of Eve or 
the purposed transgression of Adam, consisted 
in the movement of the self-assertive forces 
without the aggressive, regulative action of 
will in Eve, and the direction of those forces 
athwart the known law of God in Adam, and 
effected the disruption of the relations of the 
will, and thus gave the predominance of ac- 
tivity to these dynamic elements, rendering 
the conscious, virtuous control by will forever 
impossible. This was the death consequent 
upon the violation of the law of right. As 
the disturbance accomplished permanent re- 
sults in human nature, the death was perma- 
nent — " eternal " in its nature, since it was the 
disruption of natural relations which nature 
was powerless to recover. This natural rela- 



The Doctrine of Depravity. 143 

tion was the basis of the Spirit's relation to 
man. 

In this natural disaster the will maintained 
its integrity. Its power to act in lines of virt- 
ue was unaffected. But it had forever lost 
the power of executing its purposes upon the 
structural forces of nature. Such a self-de- 
terminate force, capable of originating he- 
roic and virtuous purposes, but powerless to 
control under such purposes the structural 
forces, is of no virtuous service to a creature 
whose responsibility lies in the purposive 
control of these forces in directions of virtue. 
"To will is present with" such a creature; 
"but how to perform that which is good" he 
finds not. 

The self-assertive forces of nature, now act- 
ing without the control of will in response 
to simple physical influences, constitute "the 
carnal mind." All forces that originate in 
physical conditions are carnal. When they 
dominate the will — that is, when the will is 
powerless to influence them in any other than 
their own direction of activity — the soul is car- 



144 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

nalizecl — "the carnal mind" prevails, and this 
is "death" and "enmity to God;" death, be- 
cause the will cannot control their action in 
the direction of virtue, but can influence them 
only in their own lines of prepotent action; 
enmity to God, because they act without re- 
gard to virtue and in accordance with phys- 
ical conditions, and render the will powerless 
to "perform that which is good." 

The law in nature that antagonizes the law 
of the Spirit is nothing more than the law of 
the self-assertive forces not fully subjected to 
the control of will. It is the unnatural sensi- 
tiveness of these forces to outward or physic- 
al — carnal — influences, and the disproportion- 
ate tendency to independent action that renders 
righteousness a struggle, virtue more difficult 
than vice. It is this state of things in the 
soul of man that explains the philosophy of 
New Testament injunctions. Indeed, we find 
in this fact the ultimate philosophy of re- 
demption. In as far as man was the recipi- 
ent of divine influence in consequence of re- 
demption, such influence was exerted in the 



The Doctrine of Depravity. 145 

restoration of an initial equilibrium between 
the will and the carnal forces, so that man by 
nature was born into life, that relation of will 
that makes its control of the carnal forces 
possible. But the will is not capable of ex- 
erting that controlling influence of itself as a 
simple natural element of soul. The ultimate 
tendency of will is toward virtue; for the virt- 
uous control of the carnal forces was its orig- 
inal function, for which its relations rendered 
it amply competent. The disruption of such 
initial relations is accomplished in the indi- 
vidual by sin — either the purposed violation 
of law, or the unconsciously assumed negative 
attitude toward the responsible control of all 
the carnal forces. 

The universal effect of redemption was the 
natural restoration of spiritual equilibrium in 
the race under conditions of the individual- 
ism of the race. The fact of virtue must be 
recognized as conditioned only in conscious, 
responsible action of will in controlling the 
dynamic elements of nature under conditions 
of intelligence; so that the individual is born 
10 



146 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

in a state as favorable for virtue as for vice 
under similar conditions of intelligence and 
association. The child seems naturally to go 
wrong because its general surroundings are 
more conducive to wrong impulse than virtu- 
ous; its associations tend more to develop 
the wrong; its knowledge of virtuous and re- 
sponsible control of impulses is not developed; 
its general education by example, and by in- 
struction oftentimes, is in the line of preva- 
lence of impulse. Whereas if the care and 
time required for careful and accurate instruc- 
tion were devoted by parents to children in 
showing them how to control themselves, they 
would as naturally go right as they appear to 
go wrong. If parents would take the time 
and exercise the requisite patience to have 
children make their first steps in learning con- 
sist of things that are right and belong to their 
moral being, they would begin with conscious, 
intelligent life to exercise the control over 
themselves that virtue requires. Their first 
conscious efforts would be in the direction of 
virtue as naturally as we see them going in 



The Doctrine of Depravity. 147 

the wrong. They go wrong so naturally be- 
cause their first knowledge, making possible 
conscious, purposive effort, is concerning 
earthly things — things that belong to the 
body. All the carnal forces, and all forces 
that belong to the body as an organism acting 
necessarily, according to their dynamic nat- 
ure simply to act in the line of organic func- 
tion without regard to the principle of right, 
become the sources of the first forms of knowl- 
edge, and therefore secure conscious effort of 
will in their own direction, or superinduce a 
negative attitude of will. 

If the child be so taught that its first pur- 
posive efforts be in the direction of virtue, 
such efforts are as much credible acts of virt- 
uous purpose as the similar acts of an adult. 
If it is taught among its first lessons as far as 
it can appreciate the character of Jesus and 
God, and God's desire concerning its own life 
and actions, and it consciously and intelligent- 
ly acts under such conditions, these conditions 
in the child are as valid conditions of divine 
influence adjusted to the child's development 



148 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

as similar conditions in the adult; and this 
conscious, virtuous effort of will in control of 
its nature in the direction of God is as credi- 
ble an act of faith in the child as a similar 
act in an adult. Such an act is an act of wor- 
ship; God, as known, is the object accepted 
consciously and intelligently. Such is the 
very essence of faith. We may formulate 
thus: faith is the acceptance of God, under 
conditions of knowledge, as the object of wor- 
ship; and worship is the conscious effort of 
the will to control the entire system of forces 
in human nature in the direction of virtue. 
If the effort is made early, before the carnal 
forces have grown out of such control, this ef- 
fort of will, being the condition under which 
God exerts the spiritual influence upon the 
nature of man that makes the control a fact, 
the child begins a life of righteousness with- 
out repentance. Its regeneration consists in 
the spiritual influence exerted at the instance 
of its faith. This intelligent effort of will in 
the direction of the Spirit involves the faith 
that is the condition of the divine influence 



The Doctrine of Depravity, 149 

in the soul of man that makes righteousness 
a fact of experience. If stich act of faith is 
deferred until the carnal forces have worked 
out a degree of their results without the virt- 
uous control of the will, there is evidently 
a different or additional Work of the Spirit 
in the heart The effort of will under the 
conditions of knowledge to exert a virtuous 
control of nature, with the sorrow for the fail- 
ure to do this and for the efforts in the direc- 
tion of wrong, when known, is the condition 
under which the requisite spiritual influence 
is granted. And any work needed in the way 
of making the virtuous control of nature by 
will a possibility is effected in the individual 
by the Spirit. This work done in the individ- 
ual and the influence of the Spirit given at 
the instance of faith is regeneration. The in- 
dividual is "born again," literally "begotten 
from above," when the conscious effort of will 
to control is in the direction of the Spirit and 
when the Spirit does for him whatever is nec- 
essary for the actual control. The child is 
"born again" when it begins the virtuous 



150 Doctrine and Function of Revelation* 

control tinder conditions of knowledge, the 
Spirit at the instance of such effort moving 
into conscious, vital relation to the soul, and 
exerting an influence graduated according to 
development; the adult, when precisely the 
same thing exists with the additional work of 
the Spirit reducing the carnal forces to sub- 
jection, and making a virtuous control possi- 
ble under such spiritual relations. 

The word rendered " born again " has aii act- 
ive significance, " to beget, and to be begotten," 
and a passive significance, " to be born." The 
passive significance negatives human agency 
involved in the word signified. " To be begot- 
ten of the Spirit" means that the will begins 
to act tinder the influence of the Spirit and in 
the direction of the Spirit. Hence that which 
is begotten of the Spirit is spirit When the 
will begins to act under an influence origi- 
nating in the carnal forces its action is in the 
direction of the flesh, and the character result- 
ant is " flesh." Hence that which is begotten 
of the flesh is flesh. 

It will be said, " Very good, if such infalli- 



The Doctrine of Depravity. 151 

ble instruction can be provided for children;" 
and it is protested that it is impossible to pro- 
vide such instruction, since the race is fallible 
and greatly liable to err. Such a religious de- 
velopment from infancy does not require in- 
fallible instruction any more than piety in 
adults requires infallible knowledge. No par- 
ent who is incapable of providing such instruc- 
tion as the religious character of children de- 
mands has the right of paternity. No one 
whose occupation or character makes impossi- 
ble the home influence necessary for the Chris- 
tian growth of the children of such home has 
the right to introduce children into the world, 
unless such occupation or character be modi- 
fied. No one who is unwilling to devote the 
time and patience necessary for the Christian 
growth of children has the right to assume 
the relations in life that lead to children. 
Love cannot be legitimately indulged unless 
the parties are every way competent to meet 
the responsibilities involved in the fulfillment 
of its ultimate function. Love is the only con- 
dition under which the race can be properly 



152 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

propagated. It is the inspiration of marriage 
and of parental relationship. It is the basis 
of the fulfillment of parental responsibility. 

Parents may as readily teach their children 
the ways of righteousness as they do the ways 
of arithmetic, if they will be as determined 
and careful. There is a difference of method 
to be observed, but the principles are the 
same. 

The magnitude of parental responsibilities 
and the possibilities of parental influence are 
such that marriages projected in ignorance of 
them and parentage acquired in indifference 
to them are sins against the race. In this de- 
partment of life is written a melancholy chap- 
ter of our social history. 

We conclude that if our children grow up 
in wickedness there are defects in the admin- 
istration of the parental charge. Parents are 
more deeply responsible for the wickedness of 
the world than they will readily concede, 
God has vouchsafed the influences of his Spir- 
it in the inauguration of the dispensation of 
the Spirit, so that our failure to rear our chil- 



The Doctrine of Depravity, 153 

dren in righteousness cannot bnt indicate 
dereliction in duty. The failure may lie in 
the tender personal relations to the Spirit, or 
in an almost unconscious indifference to pa- 
rental obligations. 



OfiAPTEB III 

DEATH. 

HOWEVEB life may liave arisen, wheth* 
er by creation or by a natural miracle, 
its continuance is a phenomenon of nature; 
its organic basis is a fact of nature, Its rise 
in nature indicates relationships other than 
simple eosmical. In the general sense of life 
it disappears with the disintegration of the 
body. As a simple organic phenomenon, an- 
imal life cannot be claimed to be capable of 
an existence independent of its body; so that 
life and death are things of nature, are worked 
out by natural forces according to natural 
conditions. So far as the animal world is con- 
cerned we find no protest against this conclu- 
sion. But when we consider the natural phe- 
nomena of human life we are expected to note 
a dignity in the facts of his experience that 
necessitates the introduction of new relations 
(154) 



Death. 155 

and principles. "Whether man's subjection to 
the law of mortality is a relation involved in 
his original, natural existence, or is one sub- 
sequently superinduced by the disaster of sin, 
may afford grounds of reasonable discussion. 
That he is now naturally subject to such law 
cannot be questioned. An analysis of his 
physical relations shows that this subjection 
of man to death is rather an ultimate fact of 
his existence than any incidental phenomenon 
of nature. It is impossible to find in his 
physical composition any element or condi- 
tion or adjustment of forces that rationally 
argues an organization independent of the 
sum of the movements of general nature. On 
the contrary, his body indicates a physical 
correlation that all but infallibly argues an 
ultimate, natural existence under the law of 
mortality. 

I shall not endeavor to justify the position 
of Bishop Marvin and others that the tree of 
life provided a mysterious contravention of 
the law of mortality. So that the removal 
of this tree left man, as a consequence of 



156 Doctrine and Function of Revelation* 

sin, subject to the law of mortality under 
which he was created. I am not inclined to 
attach any natural significance to the tree of 
life. It cannot be more than the effort of an 
early age to represent the original condition 
of mankind. I see no necessity for attaching 
to it the doctrinal value of revelation. It is 
to be viewed as an incident of the gradual liar- 
monism involved in the revelation of the Bible. 
It is certainly true that sin greatly modified 
the condition of the race. It is probable that 
the popular faith greatly exaggerates the nat- 
ural effects. It must be conceded that the 
popular interpretation of the Bible infers an 
unwarrantable statement of physical effects. 
Notwithstanding the dignity of the facts of 
human experience, we are not warranted in 
erecting into a distinct class the phenomena 
of human life. There is no warrant for ex- 
plaining the law of natural death in man in 
any other way than the existence of the same 
law in the animal world is explained — a sim- 
ple, natural phenomenon. The nature of or- 
ganization makes death inevitable at some 



Death. 157 

time, liable to occur at any time. The fact 
of death and its manner are incidental. We 
are to regard nature a system whose con- 
stitution is such that its resistless on-going 
makes death an inevitable consequence of the 
physical structure of the universe. The in- 
itial movement of individual existence is as 
physical as the growth of a tree. The indi- 
vidual attains personal existence under con- 
ditions and by the action of forces entirely 
physical. Purpose has only a remote con- 
nection. Death is nothing more than the in- 
terruption of essential organic conditions, so 
that the vital forces are reversed, or the ac- 
tions on which life depends are prevented, 
all of which involve physical agents. 

• Death occurs without regard to its interrup- 
tion of the design of God in human existence. 
God certainly designed that the infant organ- 
ism should mature and serve the purpose of 
complete growth in the world. The maturity 
of the organism is the basis for the career of 
man. Death violates this law of life, and 
therefore negatives life, when it occurs earlier 



158 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

than the laws of organic structure demand. 
If nature is undisturbed in organization, death 
is the natural conclusion of the career of an 
individual, and in an ideal form would be the 
mechanical resultant of all the activities of 
the organism. But death without violence is 
rather the accumulated effects of successive 
interruptions of vital functions, or the imme- 
diate result of violent interruptions. 

The ultimate principles of nature render the 
law of death in organic nature mechanically in- 
evitable, and lead to the confession of its exist- 
ence independently of sin. Could a tree have 
grown indefinitely before the introduction of 
sin? Or has sin affected the molecular me- 
chanics of vitality? There is a tradition that 
makes Adam before his transgression intol- 
erably large — so large that "when he lay down 
his head and his feet were so far apart that it 
would have taken five hundred years to walk 
from the one to the other." Tradition adds 
that when he sinned " God laid his hand rrpon 
him and reduced him to the more moderate 
stature of a hundred and fifty feet " — so crude 



Death. 159 

were the ideas of physical development under 
original purity, and likewise extravagant were 
the notions of the physical effects of sin. All 
such speculations concerning the effects of sin 
are puerile. It is better that we give more em* 
phasis to the spiritual character of the great 
disaster. It is in line with the general tend- 
ency of mankind to emphasize the physical 
and to regard all efforts of God to show the 
character of sin a contribution to physical 
science. 

I am inclined to consider the use of the 
word death as an object-lesson to teach man 
the effect of sin upon the soul. The natural 
phenomenon is used to denominate the spirit- 
ual because it makes an easy passage to the 
apprehension of the spiritual phenomenon 
that concerns man in a far more significant 
way than the natural. In some such way as 
natural death interrupts the career of life we 
are to conceive that sin works an interruption 
of the spiritual career of man. It is an ex- 
ceedingly difficult matter to teach moral and 
spiritual truth by means of a vocabulary devel- 



160 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

oped under an intensely secular civilization. 
Such a condition of affairs renders easy the 
divergence from the truth in all ancient en- 
deavors to formulate it. Such a principle ex- 
plains the imperfect hominization of the sys- 
tem of moral truth taught in the Bible. We 
are to regard death, therefore, as an event of 
nature occurring in accordance with the ulti- 
mate principles of organization, over which 
God exerts no more immediate control as to 
the manner and time of its occurrence than 
the death of an animal in the jungles of Af- 
rica. Its occurrence as a chastisement has no 
warrant in nature or revelation. It is no part 
of the moral or spiritual system of govern- 
ment under which we exist. It plays its part 
as an incident of nature. The spiritual dis- 
pensation taught in the Scriptures is adjusted 
to it as to all inevitable natural facts of man's 
existence. 

An event of such nature could but com- 
mand the religious attention of the world. 
It is therefore naturally connected with the 
systems of religious doctrines that have pre- 



Death 161 

vailed in the world. An event that so affects 
the individual and the family and society, and 
so impresses the moral nature of man, would 
not be overlooked by that Spirit that "num- 
bers the hairs of the head" and knows the 
falling of the sparrow, in his efforts to influ- 
ence the soul of man. Without any physical 
connection with the event, the Spirit sees the 
fact as an experience of man, estimates its 
effect upon the soul, and endeavors to use it 
to make an additional impression for good. 

The heart of man in the bustle of his life 
does not hear the "still small voice" of the 
Spirit that urges to piety. But when life has 
been dethroned the heart becomes more sensi- 
tive to divine influences, because the stern facts 
of nature bring the soul face to face with truths 
that have been hitherto repudiated as unwor- 
thy of serious consideration because antag- 
onistic to life. Nature forsakes the soul, and 
in this extremity it turns to God. We look 
upon death, and by its relation to us we too 
are brought to face the sterner facts of nature, 
and likewise become more sensitive to spiritual 
11 



162 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

influences. Now on the occasion of death the 
Spirit takes advantage of the unusual sensi- 
tiveness of the soul to spiritual influences and 
endeavors to "draw" men to Christ. In this 
way we are to explain all the moral influence 
of death and likewise the spiritual value of 
afflictions. God does not afflict by death or 
otherwise for the purpose of moral conviction. 
Our afflictions, as death, come upon us with- 
out God's purpose or agency. They are sim- 
ply incidents of our existence, and God uses 
them when they do come upon us for spiritual 
ends. The function of the Spirit is only spir- 
itual, affects only the soul, looks only to the 
spiritual advancement of man, and accom- 
plishes this by taking advantage of every in- 
cident of man's life that is in any way related 
to his moral nature so as to affect it. The 
Spirit is capable only of a moral influence 
upon man. We cannot predicate of such a 
dispensation any mechanical action or phys- 
ical results whatsoever. 

I am thoroughly convinced that the teach- 
ing of the New Testament concerning the 



Death. 163 

function of the Spirit is confined to those 
moral influences that look to the spiritual 
elevation of man; and consequently that all 
expressions of "chastisement," "scourging," 
etc., are to be understood as referring to such 
moral influence.. " For whom the Lord loveth 
he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom 
he receiveth." Here we can justly refer the 
action of God to nothing more than the moral 
influence exerted for spiritual ends. The mis- 
sion of the Son of God is in no way phys- 
ical. The forces introduced into the world 
were exclusively moral. There is no evidence 
that redemption involved a movement of God 
to affect nature in any way. It was a spirit- 
ual movement adjusted to a physical order of 
things to secure spiritual effects in man. The 
Scriptures intimate a great final physical re-ad- 
justment in keeping with the spiritual changes 
effected in man through redemption. In that 
final state death is to be eliminated and the 
prophecy is authoritatively made that the re- 
deemed shall exist under conditions so totally 
different from the present that, if physical 



164 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

at all, they are accomplished upon principles 
of organization radically different from the 
order of existence in which man was brought 
forth. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

GENEKAL CONCLUSION. 

WE are compelled by observation of 
facts to consider man in some signifi- 
cant way a product of nature, in natural fac- 
titive relations. Upon the hypothesis of cre- 
ation only the first man or pair were created. 
Humanity was created with the power of re- 
production, and expressed in the form of indi- 
viduals in natural dependence for sustenance. 
Individuals that make up the race under the 
law of its individualism are the natural prod- 
ucts of the created pair. The hypothesis of 
evolution gives special emphasis to the nat- 
ural relations of the race, but in nowise dis- 
credits the facts of human life. It may be 
made to eliminate God from the system of nat- 
ure under which man developed; but this is 
a sin of the individual rather than the hypoth- 
esis. As existent and observable in nature 

(165) 



166 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

evolution can be no more than the formulation 
of a great law, such as gravity, that belongs to 
the system of nature actually existent. Under 
such a law animal life was developed, as also 
vegetable. Man is existent under this law, 
existing in a physical connection with the law 
of animal life of such character as to suggest 
fundamental relations. In no case, however, 
is the divine or supernatural logically ex- 
cluded by any necessity of the system. It 
seems most reasonable and consistent to con- 
clude that man was not independent of this 
law of organic nature, and that in his imme- 
diate origin there was something more than 
the dynamic elements of nature involved. It 
is not, however, to be concluded that the su- 
pernatural element called for in the origin of 
man was factitive in the system of nature ex- 
istent. 

If we accept the natural evolution of man, 
excluding supernatural agency, we arrive at 
the same creature found by the hypothesis of 
creation. However we may explain the origin 
and development of his fundamental charac- 



General Conclusion. 167 

ieristics, he exists of necessity in the same re- 
lations — moral, spiritual, and physical— that 
creation finds. It does not change the essen- 
tial character of a product to explain its 
origin, even to demonstrate its development 
from elements totally different from those 
found to exist in it. Water is nevertheless 
water, although it is developed by natural 
process from elements having none of the 
characteristics of the fluid. The fluid char- 
acter may not be logically traceable to the 
gaseous, but the facts compel us to see the 
liquid potential in the gases. 

It cannot discredit the moral and spiritual 
elements of man's nature to find them devel- 
oped from lower forms. It does not in any 
way discredit the diamond to be demonstrated 
to be the product of a long, natural process 
beginning with pure carbon in some of its 
combined forms, possibly vegetable. It may 
be claimed, however, by the advocate of mate- 
rial evolution that the evolution of the intel- 
lectual, moral, and spiritual in a system of 
nature is a demonstration of the ultimate ma- 



168 Doctrine and Function of Bevelation. 

terial character of these elements, and there- 
fore that man expresses no more than a more 
highly organized being than the animal or veg- 
etable, and that what appears as intellect is 
no more than is invisible in the lower animal 
and even in the plant — only a finer and high- 
er manifestation of what belongs naturally to 
matter. The further conclusion from such 
facts is that man bears a relation to the uni- 
verse in every way similar to that of lower 
organisms; that his individual existence is 
conditioned in organization; that we have no 
evidence of such existence continued beyond 
the integrity of the organism. 

It is not at all necessary that the intellectual, 
moral, and spiritual be considered a manifesta- 
tion of the physical elements of the natural 
system in which they were developed because 
so developed. There is really no evidence for 
the continuity of the physical into the intel- 
lectual. The evidences afforded by nature are 
against thinking such continuity. The form 
the thought of continuity should take is that 
what is seen as intellect existed in nature in 



General Conclusion. 169 

an unorganized condition, without factitive re- 
lations, until organization was accomplished. 
The law of organization may be conceived as 
gradually conditioning in such process the 
force that finally takes the form of intellect, 
or soul, when the organization is complete. 
We may readily conceive the soul organized 
in matter in its organic forms, but not depend- 
ent for its existence on such organization. 
That is, the soul as an entity is not originated 
by organization, but its individual, factitive 
existence is dependent upon organization. 
Material organization is the condition of the 
individualization of the soul, and its manifes- 
tation as such. Under the law of reproduc- 
tion we may rationally conceive the soul orig- 
inating in the antecedent soul by a process of 
gradually conditioning in seminal matter only 
the potential soul which under material or- 
ganization is itself developed into conscious 
personal existence. It will be seen at once by 
those acquainted with the physiological facts 
that only a comparatively limited number of 
potential souls ever arrive, under the law of 



170 Doctrine and Function of Revelation, 

reproduction, at personal existence. Where 
we see in organic matter so many possibilities 
of soul-development, yet so many arrested in 
their development, or wholly prevented, we 
are forced by the facts of nature before us to 
conclude that the potential soul in seminal 
matter has no conscious or factitive existence 
until complete organization is effected, or 
else agree with material evolution that soul is 
explained on condition of the continuity of 
matter. 

There is certainly room for speculation as 
to which factor belongs the origin of soul — 
maternity or paternity. The facts of reproduc- 
tion seem to point to the origin of soul in the 
paternal relation and the organization of both 
soul and body in the maternal. We cannot 
logically, in accord with evidences of nature, 
assert that inasmuch as material organization 
conditioned the organization of the individual 
soul, therefore the destruction of the material 
disintegrates the soul. The material was the 
condition under which the soul became an in- 
dividual, personal existence as known in life. 



General Conclusion. 171 

We assumed as thinkable and reasonable 
that what is known as soul existed in the 
form of a force or element that sustained 
no factitive relations in the universe; and 
that it was so related in nature that organ- 
ization conditions a similar movement in it 
which results finally in the complete organ- 
ization of personal existence in conditions of 
bodily organization. We may readily claim 
that the interruption of the physical organiza- 
tion before complete to the extent of prevent- 
ing its completion would naturally prevent 
the completion of the soul organization begun 
under such conditions. The soul thus inter- 
rupted in the progress of organization may be 
conceived to revert to its original form, which 
is not to be conceived as soul at all in the 
sense of the word as generally used, which 
signifies a conscious personal existence. But 
when organization is complete the soul is also 
complete in its form of personal factitive ex- 
istence; so that the natural evidences forbid 
predicating annihilation or disorganization of 
the soul at the instance of bodily disorganiza- 



172 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

tion. The whole weight of the doctrine of 
Scripture concerning man is in favor of a per- 
sonal existence independent of bodily organ- 
isation after complete organization has been 
accomplished. The condition under which 
any thing begins to exist is not always neces- 
sary for its continued existence. 

The soul previous to organization into con- 
scious, personal existence must be conceived 
as existing in an unorganized state under cer- 
tain organic conditions of matter in which the 
soul proper is only potential. Traced back to 
the first man, it assumes a form that admits 
more or less speculation. The hypothesis of 
creation claims its origin in creative acts of 
God which brought forth a conscious personal 
soul. The hypothesis of evolution will admit 
of divine action in the origin, but whether it 
was creative or formative is a question contro- 
verted. If creative, the origin is the same as 
above. If formative, the creative act is placed 
at the beginning, when all matter and all things 
were created. The creature of which God made 
soul existed in material relations correlated 



General Conclusion, 173 

to the law of organization, and was so organ- 
ized in different degrees of perfection that its 
full potential character does not appear until 
man is reached. In this case there was a 
formative act of God that gave higher perfec- 
tion and greater permanence of existence than 
was possible in nature alone. 

The evidence of nature, the evidence of 
Scripture, and of consciousness lead us to a 
very strong faith in the continued personal ex- 
istence of the soul after the destruction of the 
body. There are no positive evidences any- 
where against such a conclusion, whatever 
may be said in favor of the protest. 

As a product of nature man's career is oft- 
entimes interrupted by natural changes that 
completely estop the individual, disrupting 
the conditions of his factitive relations in the 
universe. He is not to be considered an ob- 
ject of special providence that places God in 
mechanical relations to the universe, or identi- 
fies the forces of nature with the will of God. 

The system of providence taught in the Old 
Testament must be understood to be a system 



174 Doctrine and Function of Revelation* 

of special dealings of God with man in order 
to the completion of the revelation of trnth re* 
quired in his salvation, and in nowise repre- 
sentative of universal providential relations. 
It is purtenant only to God's efforts in the 
method of revelation, specific and absolutely 
restricted to God as related to such methods. 
The Bible is the concrete record of the op- 
erations of God in this method, and contains 
the truths as apprehended and expressed by 
men " moved by the Holy Ghost " to speak such 
things with divine authority. The word reve- 
lation is not to be used in its ordinary generic 
sense of to discover, make known by certain 
processes or any process, but is to be used in a 
specific sense as applied to God in making 
known, discovering to man by methods adapted 
to the laws of intellection and speech truth that 
pertained to his salvation— doctrinal redemp- 
tion. The record of this process of condition- 
ing doctrinal redemption in human formularies 
is a faithful record of the facts of God's dealing 
and of the truth as learned and expressed by 
man under the influence of the Spirit. Such 



General Conclusion. 175 

revelation of God to man involves the discov- 
ery only of spiritual truth, and the Bible as a 
whole is the record of the dealings of God in 
the method adopted for the perfecting of such 
revelation. We are not to consider the Bible 
as containing any other authoritative deliv- 
erances intended to regulate the thoughts of 
men. Its scientific appearance, or passages 
that appear to have scientific value, are to be 
considered more as incidental, originating in 
the law of soul that applies all spiritual con- 
victions to the explanation of matters of spec- 
ulation, than as fundamental elements of rev- 
elation. 

The mission of the Scriptures is moral and 
spiritual, having no logical or necessary con- 
nection with the science of the world. We are 
to find in the Scriptures an inspiration to holi- 
ness of life, and the formulary of man's true 
end — not to serve the secular side of life, but 
to give prominence to the spiritual and make 
the secular subsidiary to his true moral end. 

Growing out of man's physical relations and 
social nature, the intense secular civilization 



176 Doctrine and Function of Bevelation. 

of the world lias been developed without con- 
sideration of the moral or spiritual necessities 
of the race, really in radical antagonism to the 
spiritual life of man. Such a civilization can- 
not be considered representative of a divine 
purpose. To avoid the development of such 
civilization was the purpose of the revelation 
• of God in saving man. It was to be accom- 
plished by introducing into the life of man 
the spiritual forces of religion corrected and 
pure. The world did not accept the truth and 
live up to its requirements. Hence the com- 
plexion of the world is carnal; its civilization, 
entirely and intensely secular, operates a ter- 
rific antagonism to the religious life com- 
manded by Christ. The factitive presence in 
the thought of the world of the truths of rev- 
elation would naturally have worked a differ- 
ent civilization — one in which spirituality 
would have been as prominent as secularity is 
in the present. 

The law of right prevails in human life, and 
therefore in the world, only as man makes it 
prevail. There is no absolute condition of 



General Conclusion. 177 

prevalence other than through the intelligent 
agency of man. The ultimate right does not 
prevail in the life of man. It is only right as 
learned — the forms it takes in the knowledge 
of man — that affects character and the general 
civilization of the world. The knowledge is 
the condition of its influence, but knowledge 
of right, perfect or imperfect, does not inev- 
itably affect life. Such is its relations that 
there must be voluntary purposive activity in 
the direction of right as known. 

Death is a thing of nature, playing its part in 
the system of nature under which man exists, 
as all other things of its kind, occurring with- 
out regard to the purposes of God in human 
life, oftentimes violently interrupting the plan 
of God in man, and is to have no more signif- 
icance in the way of indicating the purpose of 
God in the individual life than a thunder- 
storm that prostrates a forest. The redemp- 
tion of man is adjusted to his natural condi- 
tions, and makes the pathetic appeal to " seek 
first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
ness;" and we have the significant warning, 
12 



178 Doctrine and Function of Revelation, m 

"for we know not what a day may bring 
forth." The spirit of the warning is plain, 
Righteousness should be made the primary 
end of life, for we cannot estimate the work- 
ings of that system of nature under which we 
live. It may render us incapable of seeking 
righteousness. It may permanently interrupt 
life. We are to regard the contingencies of 
life and prepare the spiritual man while nat- 
ure permits. For there are no promises in 
nature upon which we may depend. Death 
of the young, the old, the middle-aged, the 
strong and the weak, the wicked and the right- 
eous is a continual warning that death is no 
respecter of' persons or conditions, and regards 
neither God nor man. 

The only providence we can claim for the 
world is one limited to spiritual influences. 
God does not exist in any mechanical or phys- 
ical relations whatsoever, and does not in any 
way bring this or that upon men. The life 
of man goes as he makes it, the Spirit always 
operating a superable influence upon the soul. 
Our fortunes and our property, our successes 



General Conclusion. 179 

and our failures, our health and sickness, all 
things denominated afflictions, come upon us 
without God's immediate influence. He nev- 
er afflicts, he never kills; he does not give fort- 
une, nor does he withhold it. He does not 
send disaster nor disease upon the world. 
They come by nature acting in its own chan- 
nels, and are legitimate natural results. Oft- 
entimes nature has been interrupted by hu- 
man agency, and the effort to re-adjust brings 
about much suffering. 

Pain is more a simple physical consequence 
than any monitor of God. It serves a good 
purpose; but we can scarcely imagine organ- 
ization without the capacity of pain graduated 
according to the degree of organization. There 
are none of the elements of divine purpose in 
pain. The Spirit of God was sent into the 
world to "reprove the world of sin, of right- 
eousness, and of judgment." He has no me- 
chanical or physical function to perform. 
The entire field of influence, according to the 
postulate of the Spirit, is the soul of man. 
He knows all that happens to man, and is 



180 Doctrine and Function of Revelation, 

present to take advantage of all disasters, 
misfortunes, afflictions, as Well as successes 
and fortunes, and to bless them to the good 
of man in the way of leading him to God and 
a spiritual life. 

The dispensation of the Spirit is confined 
to the soul of man, and marks the departure 
from the object method of the Old Testament. 
He is to teach and to aid the spirit of man, to 
rebuke, convict, and comfort* The dealings of 
God with men are confined to the sphere of 
the Spirit "which is the Holy Ghost, whom 
the Father will send in my name." That 
Spirit is now fully inaugurated in his great 
world mission, and he that will not believe by 
his teaching, assisting, rebuking, convicting, 
"would not believe even though one should 
rise from the dead." 

I am more thoroughly convinced as I study 
the subject that the proper sphere of prayer 
is for spiritual influences and blessings. As 
the mission of the Spirit is to give the " good 
things" of the Spirit to those that ask, so the 
sphere and compass of the request is limited 



General Conclusion, 181 

by the power and function of the Spirit to ad- 
minister; so that all expressions of Scripture 
that indicate the privilege of asking "whatso- 
ever you will," with the promise of obtaining, 
are to be understood as based upon the pos- 
tulate of the Spirit's mission to " reprove the 
world " etc., to " teach all things whatsoever I 
have said unto you," to "guide into all truth." 
There is really no Scripture warrant for pray- 
ing for physical things. We may pray about 
our affairs of life, but to ask directly for such 
a blessing as a good crop, a successful and 
profitable business, etc., is entirely beyond the 
function of the Spirit. It is legitimate to ask 
for wisdom, for divine influence in the way of 
assisting in the Christian management of our 
life affairs, etc. The greatest value of prayer, 
however, consists in its power to bring the 
soul into more intimate union with God. It is. 
ultimately the desire of the soul for God, a 
consciousness of the want of God in the soul 
and its effort to supply that want, and fixes in 
the soul a continual sense of dependence upon 
the Spirit's influence. When exercised in its 



182 Doctrine and Function of Revelation. 

proper spiritual function greater spirituality 
and more consistent piety prevail among men. 
But when exercised in the direction of secular 
affairs the tendency is to exclude the higher 
and finer spiritual function and the soul grows 
in the way of secular life and the "carnal 
mind;" for the prayer is nothing more than 
an effort to effect secular success with no 
definite spiritual purpose. A people whose 
prayers are most intense in the direction of 
secular life are most worldly-minded and have 
least deep interest in the kingdom of God. 
Interest in the Church is no more than inter- 
est in any secular enterprise. The Church 
becomes to them a secular enterprise. 

Likewise, thanksgiving for material pros- 
perity is recognizing in God a secular sover- 
eign, most interested in the material affairs 
of man, and indicates the process of secular- 
ization of the soul. To thank God for the 
things of the world is to make him the dis- 
poser of such things. To ask him for such 
things in prayer is to depart from the postu- 
late of his being: "God is Spirit, and those 



General Conclusion, 183 

that worship him must worship him in spirit 
and in truth.'" This indicates a spiritual rela- 
tion which man is to most carefully regard, 
in which he is to find his only approach to 
God; and that thankfulness and gratitude 
should be in the direction of spiritual bene- 
fits that God bestows. 

The secular blessings of God upon the an- 
cient world are not to be taken as representa- 
tive of any universal relation, but purtenant 
only to that special method of God's dealing 
in revelation. The Bible certainly discloses 
a special line of divine providence, but always 
in immediate connection with the method of 
revelation. I do not believe that any of the 
expressions of the Old or New Testaments 
concerning the providence of God can be le- 
gitimately construed into a statement of prov- 
idential oversight beyond its specific applica- 
tion in relation to revelation. 

The End. 






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